For months, The Viking Raiders’ ascension to the Raw Tag Team Championships has felt like a matter of when, not if. And now, that time has come. Following a non-title win over Dolph Ziggler & Robert Roode that got them a championship match, Erik & Ivar finally stormed into Valhalla by defeating the titleholders to notch their first reign as Raw Tag Team Champions.

Ziggler & Roode made it a fight by using the same strategy they employed last week, keeping Erik from tagging in Ivar. The champions did their best to wear down the smaller Raider with attacks to the outside that included a Zig Zag into the various debris of the timekeeper’s area. They even held Ivar at bay when he tagged in, continuing to work over Erik with an array of individual and combined finishing maneuvers. But Ivar once again came to his partner’s aid at the last second, taking out both champs with a springboard back-elbow and teeing Ziggler up for the fateful Viking Experience.

To say the new champions loom large is an understatement. If The Viking Raiders’ experience is any indication — they never technically lost the NXT Tag Team Titles before coming to Raw — the rest of the Raw Tag Team division has their work cut out for them. Unlike Erik & Ivar’s march to the top of the mountain, the idea of any team mustering up the will to dethrone them is looking like a matter of if, not when. A very, very big if.

The Viking Raiders fight to dethrone Raw Tag Team Champions Robert Roode & Dolph Ziggler.