Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode are now next in line to challenge Seth Rollins & Braun Strowman for the Raw Tag Team Titles. And if that sentence isn’t strange enough — these two have been a tag team for a grand total of one night — consider how they got the nod in the first place: Winning the largest Tag Team Turmoil Match in Raw history and outlasting a field that included The O.C., The Revival, Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins, The B-Team, Lucha House Party, The Viking Raiders and Heavy Machinery. That’s four former tag team champions, one team of unpredictable veterans and two pairs of hosses. In terms of big wins, we’ve gone past glorious and entered the realm of the miraculous.

00:42

Steaming after being eliminated from the Tag Team Turmoil Match via double disqualification, The Viking Raiders are willing to accept any and all challengers.

And yet, nobody can say it wasn’t earned: The Viking Raiders’ early win over The B-Team was nullified by a double-disqualification against The O.C., leaving Ziggler & Roode with the benefit of a clean slate. They made good on that chance, running the table against The Lucha House Party (superkick to the back of Gran Metalik’s head), The Revival (Glorious DDT to Scott Dawson) and Ryder & Hawkins (superkick to Ryder) to bring it down to the wire against Heavy Machinery.

01:23

Despite coming up just short in the Tag Team Turmoil Match, Heavy Machinery assure the competition that THEY ARE COMING!

They played that matchup perfectly, too, isolating Tucker with a two-on-one assault designed to keep Otis from getting into the match. When Heavy Machinery turned the tables and set up the Compactor, Ziggler struck, Zig-Zagging Otis on top of Tucker to set him up for a Glorious DDT. As unlikely a victory as ever, and given the chemistry shown tonight, it might not be the last. After all, Ziggler & Roode aren’t so far from Rollins & Strowman, who were brought together by happenstance themselves. This is going to be interesting.

01:18

Zack Ryder & Curt Hawkins remain reassured that tonight wasn’t really a loss, and they’re grateful for that.