in the history of WWE, tag teams come and go all the time. While there are plenty of legendary tag team specialist duos, there are also teams of singles fighters put together with varying degrees of success. The average fan may not have put Greg “The Hammer” Valentine and the Honky Tonk Man together, but WWE did and called them Rhythm and Blues.
Rhythm and Blues was only around for a couple of years and never captured any WWE titles, but they did have a couple of big feuds as well as what one might call “a wrestling moment.” Let’s take a look at what fans need to know about this duo, including just how musically talented they actually were.
10 Greg Valentine was already an accomplished veteran
By the time Rhythm and Blues was formed, Greg Valentine was already a veteran talent, having debuted in 1970. Most of his accomplishments leading up to this career occurred in the NWA Territories, where he clashed with Chief Wahoo McDaniel and “Rowdy Roddy. Flutist. Having previously wrestled in WWE in the late 1970s and early 1980s, Valentine returned to the promotion in 1984, where he captured the Intercontinental title, held it for 285 days, and later won the tag team championship together. Brutus Beefcake as The Dream Team. .
9 Honky Tonk Man already had his legendary run for the intercontinental title
In 1986, the Honky Tonk Man appeared in WWE after a run in Stampede Wrestling. Initially, Honky was a babyface with a Hulk Hogan co-sign, but the crowds couldn’t embrace the newcomer and gradually turned rude after he received too much negative fan mail. The following year, Honky embarked on the longest streak of his career when he captured the Intercontinental Championship and held it for a record 454 days, often being disqualified and counting losses to avoid losing the title.
8 Both were clients of Jimmy Hart
In addition to both being former Intercontinental Champions, Greg Valentine and the Honky Tonk Man had one more thing in common: the same manager. Back then, managers often represented an entire group of clients, and Valentine and Honky were members of The First Family, led by Jimmy Hart.
A fast-talking, musically inclined huckster who first appeared on the Memphis wrestling scene, Jimmy Hart was the perfect proxy for the Elvis-impersonating Honky Tonk Man. Greg Valentine, on the other hand, originally worked with Captain Lou Albano before joining “La Boca del Sur.”
7 Originally tagged to fight the Hart Foundation
Also in The First Family were Bret Hart and Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart, the team known as The Hart Foundation. In 1988, Hart and Neidhart had a falling out over Jimmy Hart’s lineup with The Fabulous Rougeaus and began feuding with their own manager. To protect himself, Jimmy Hart recruited his other clients, Greg Valentine and the Honky Tonk Man, to take on The Hart Foundation, leading to a match at wrestlemania 5 in which the Foundation defeated Valentine and Honky.
6 Reformed as Rhythm & Blues in 1990
The Hart Foundation feud was the first time Greg Valentine and the Honky Tonk Man had teamed up, but they hadn’t yet become Rhythm and Blues. That happened over a year later, in late 1989, though the footage aired in early 1990. With the Rougeaus leaving WWE, Hart needed a new team to manage, so Honky and Valentine reunited as team, debuting in one episode. of Super stars. While they initially had no name, “Ravishing” Rick Rude came up with one by looking at them: Rhythm and Blues.
5 Greg Valentine changed his appearance for the Tag Team
On paper, Rhythm and Blues was a mismatched tag team of individual artists, as the Honky Tonk Man had a high-concept gimmick, while Greg Valentine was more of a “meat and potatoes” type of wrestler. That all changed with the formation of the tag team, as Valentine began wearing more extravagant outfits, including a $6,000 jacket, to match his teammate. Additionally, at the suggestion of Jesse “The Body” Ventura, Valentine dyed her blonde hair black.
4 He arrived at WrestleMania 6 in a pink Cadillac
As established, Rhythm and Blues are one of the most forgotten Golden Era WWE tag teams, but even they went on to be part of one of the greats.”wrestling moment” tropes: making an entrance with a novel vehicle. For Greg Valentine and the Honky Tonk Man, the duo came to wrestling 6 in a pink Cadillac reminiscent of Elvis Presley, notably driven by a young Diamond Dallas Page.
it was in wrestling 6 that Honky and Valentine also started their first fight. While singing their song “Hunka Hunka Honky Love”, the Rhythm and Blues performance was interrupted by The Bushwhackers, leading to numerous fights on TV and on shows throughout 1990.
3 They were in line for a tag title reign
Once Rhythm and Blues wrapped up their run with The Bushwhackers, it became clear that Greg Valentine and the Honky Tonk Man were headed towards bigger and better things. By the fall of 1990, the duo entered a series of house shows with their old enemies The Hart Foundation, regularly challenging Bret Hart and Jim Neidhard for the Tag Team Championship. It seemed that Valentine and Honky were on their way to becoming the next champions, or so they thought. Once WWE signed The Road Warriors, later renamed The Legion of Doom, Hawk and Animal soon became the focus of the tag team division.
2 Neither of them knew how to play the guitar.
Part of the Rhythm and Blues gimmick during their time together included ringside performances, during which Greg Valentine played guitar and sang, albeit poorly. That was part of the joke, with Valentine being the talentless one while the Honky Tonky Man obviously had some sort of musical bent as an Elvis impersonator. However, the Honky Tonk Man was not much of a musician either, as he never learned to play the guitar. What little skill Honky had on the guitar came from Hillbilly Jim, who taught him a few things to get ahead.
1 broke up in 1990
Being rude, Rhythm and Blues relied on Jimmy Hart’s interference through a megaphone or other foreign object, but eventually Hart’s meddling ended up becoming a drag and began to drive a wedge between Greg Valentine and the Honky Tonk Man to late 1990s. Before long, Valentine had enough and turned on Jimmy Hart, becoming a babyface in the process. A breakup match between Valentine and Honky was supposed to take place, but the Honky Tonk Man ended up leaving WWE, ending the feud before it really started.