5 underappreciated WWE tag teams

#2 Orient Express

Orient Express V1

Orient Express V2

In early 1990, manager Mr. Fuji brought The Orient Express (Akio Sato & Pat Tanaka) to WWE as his latest addition to the tag team division.

The Orient Express kicked off a prolonged feud with The Rockers with a countout win at WrestleMania VI after Sato threw salt in Jannetty's eyes while they were outside the ring. The two teams continued to feud off and on.

Success would be few and far between for the Express in WWE from that point forward, however. The Orient Express were next placed in a lopsided feud with the Legion of Doom in which they lost all their matchups.

In fact, after the big win over the Rockers at WrestleMania VI, Tanaka and Sato only made two more pay-per-view appearances while in the WWF as a team. At SummerSlam 1990 they were defeated by "Hacksaw" Jim Duggan and Nikolai Volkoff. They were then a part of the Sgt. Slaughter led team "The Mercenaries” at Survivor Series 1990 in which they were both eliminated quickly.

There were two versions of The Orient Express in WWE

When Akio Sato decided to leave the US wrestling scene in late 1990, the WWE decided to replace Sato with Paul Diamond under a mask. He was referred to as Kato in this new version of the Orient Express.

During this time the team had a very well received match with their old enemies the Rockers at the 1991 Royal Rumble and another great match against The New Foundation at the 1992 Royal Rumble. However, these were the only two PPV appearances for the New Orient Express before being disbanded for good.