SmackDown! vs. Raw 2009 First Look

ORLANDO–There was a time, just a few years back in fact, where it seems like you could barely find a working tag team in the WWE. For whatever reason, the two-man team had fallen out of favor with fans (or at least, it seems, with WWE management). As a result, tag teams were practically nowhere to be found. That’s changed recently and, if the upcoming SmackDown! vs. Raw 2009 is any indicator, tag team wrestling looks to be a big part of the future of the series going forward. As we discovered today during a THQ press event in Orlando announcing SVR 09, working as a team in the ring is one of the central focuses of this year’s game.

That focus on tag team wrestling will emerge in a number of different ways. Key to the "new" tag team approach is a number of different ways to interact with your partner in the ring. This can be things like "illegal" partner actions (you know, choking an opponent while the ref’s back is turned, holding the rope down while your partner tosses your opponent against the ring, thus tossing him out of the ring, and so on).