Tag Team = Marriage...

It's pretty well-documented that the majority of my career in the wrestling business has been dominated by being a part of a tag team.  Along with my tag partner "The Natural" Brian Bender, we formed a tag team called Team Clash that lasted 6 years and turned us into one of the best teams in the Midwest.  It is a time of my career and my life in general that I will never forget, just because of all of the good times that we had together.



Team Clash - Ernie Ballz & Brian Bender

I get people who constantly ask me why Bender and I were such a good team.  I always answer that we were a legit team.  We rode together, hung out together, and basically broke into the business together.  The key to being a good tag team is to not try to make it, it just has to be.  We were the real deal.

The name Team Clash came because we are two completely different people.  Bender is more of a serious guy with a basic style, while I am a goofball with a little bit more of a flashy style.  Even though we were different in so many ways, we pretty much had the same sense of humor, which I feel was our real connection at first.

Throughout the years that we tagged together, we just started to think alike and kind of know what the other guys was thinking as well.  This is not something that can be taught, it is just something that comes with time together.  We had done a lot of the same stuff in matches and watched a lot of the same footage for inspiration (mostly Brain Busters & Hart Foundation) and it showed in the way that we worked together.

When I broke my ankle in 2009 and had my surgery, Bender I held a few different sets of tag titles, which basically forced him to either defend them himself, or find someone to replace me.  Well, it's not that easy to just replace a tag partner and expect the same results.  It sucked, but there was not much that I could do about it.  But it sucks even more because that was kind of the nail in the coffin for Team Clash overall and we have not really tagged up since.

Ohio Championship Wrestling Tag Team Champions

I would like to get the two of us back together, but Bender has a lot of other stuff going on in his life, and he does not seem interested in wrestling much anymore.  I know that the two of as a team still have A LOT to offer, especially in the promotions that I currently work for.  I plan on trying to get that ball rolling soon enough and hopefully Bender is receptive to it.

The point of this whole blog is that tag team wresling really is like a marriage.  Bender and I constaly fought about things, but we always seemed to work together to get through it somehow and come out better on the other end.  Tag wrestling is all about making a commitment and sticking to it.  Going out and wrestling singles matches is almost like cheating on your tag team partner.  And if the two of you do stick together, you get better year after year and turn yourselves into a hot commodity.  Great tag teams are hard to come by, but I can honestly say that I feel Team Clash was just that, great. 

I cannot tell you how many times I wanted to go off on my own while we were tagging, but now that I have, I miss having Bender there with me.  It might sound gay or whatever, but it is a special bond that you make, especially when you tag as long as we did.  We were together for 6 years, and hopefully we will tag again soon and revive Team Clash.  Thinking individually and working collectively, that's what it is all about.