| abstract
| - Brothers are a common phenomenon in wrestling. This makes sense; the consecutive Super Bowl successes of Peyton and Eli Manning at least hint at a genetic component to athletic success. The presence of siblings in a wrestling promotion contributes a degree of logic and realism to the proceedings; after all, it seems only natural--and a tag team of brothers is even more logical, for surely siblings would work together more effectively than a tandem composed of mere acquaintances. Wrestling brothers might indeed form a legendary and oft-decorated team, like Rick and Scott Steiner; or each might be recognized as a legitimate star in his own right, like Dory and Terry Funk (each a former NWA world champion). If they were once a single zygote, then you have Tag-Team Twins, such as Ron and Don Harris (they would also qualify as a Sibling Team). If there are a bunch of them, like the Harts or the Von Erichs, that's a Wrestling Family. But sometimes there's a dearth of brother combinations in a promotion. Does the promoter remedy the situation by sending out scouts to recruit talented young brother duos? No, this is wrestling. He fixes the problem the same way he fixes every problem: by inventing the answer out of whole cloth and lying to us about it. When a promoter forms a tag team from two guys who look vaguely alike and slaps a new surname on one or both of them, the result is a set of Unrelated Brothers.
|