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PHILADELPHIA — Against six-time tag team champions The New Age Outlaws, The Ascension came one step closer to validating their claim of being the most dominant tag team of any era. Brash newcomers Viktor & Konnor overcame Attitude Era originals Road Dogg & Billy Gunn in the first official match of Royal Rumble 2015, marking the most significant victory of The Ascension’s young WWE careers.
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The encounter was precipitated by Viktor & Konnor’s run-in with the legendary Outlaws, the APA and the nWo last Monday on Raw Reunion. That confrontation came on the heels of The Ascension repeatedly boasting that they are superior to the most influential teams in sports-entertainment history, including Demolition, Powers of Pain and Legion of Doom.
Intent on teaching the young, loudmouth Superstars a lesson in respect at Royal Rumble, Road Dogg & Gunn used their years of experience to their advantage at the outset of the match. Showing no signs of ring rust, both WWE Legends appeared in fighting form; Gunn’s quick takedowns of Viktor prompted “You still got it!” chants from the WWE Universe, while Road Dogg’s strung together stinging left hands and a strutting kneedrop to elicit huge applause.
Eventually, The Ascension’s illegal double-teaming and supreme physicality took over. Once they found their opening, Viktor & Konnor successfully cut off the ring, preventing Road Dogg from tagging Gunn into the match. The immense Konnor put all of his 290 pounds on Road Dogg as he clinched in a rear chinlock, and Viktor let out a primal roar before dropping a fist onto his opponent’s head.
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After a lapse in judgment by The Ascension, Road Dogg slyly escaped their clutch and tagged in Gunn, who followed up by tossing Konnor out of the ring and nailing Viktor with a picture-perfect tilt-a-whirl slam. Viktor, however, then avoided a Fameasser attempt, and after leveraging a tag that Gunn never saw, the monstrous duo took down the Attitude Era Superstar with the Fall of Man to score the victory.
Now that The Ascension may have ushered in the fall of The Outlaws, which team is next to try the intimidating, if overly confident, gladiators?