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WWE NXT’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic: What to watch for in its 2026 return

Live coverage and related reports for WWE NXT’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic: What to watch for in its 2026 return.

AI Story Summary

What happened?

WWE NXT’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic is returning in 2026 as a 16-team, 11th-iteration tournament. NXT GM Robert Stone revealed the first entrants — NXT Tag Team Champions Vanity Project and AAA Tag Team Champions the Wagner Brothers — and NXT later announced the full field via its X account. The tournament kicks off on Tuesday on NXT and features multiple former champions among the participants. The article also traces the event's lineage back to Dusty Rhodes and tag-tournament traditions like the late-1980s Crockett Cup.

Key Takeaways

  • The Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic returns in 2026 as a 16-team tournament (11th edition).
  • First announced entrants are NXT Tag Team Champions Vanity Project and AAA Tag Team Champions the Wagner Brothers.
  • NXT announced additional teams and has released the complete tournament field on its X account.
  • The tournament begins on Tuesday on NXT and includes multiple former tag-team champions.
  • The event’s history connects to Dusty Rhodes and earlier tag tournaments such as the Crockett Cup.

AI Timeline

Return announced

NXT announced the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic is returning for 2026.

First entrants revealed

NXT GM Robert Stone announced initial entrants — Vanity Project and the Wagner Brothers — on Busted Open Radio.

Additional teams announced

NXT posted six more teams on its X account following the initial reveal.

Full field released

NXT announced the complete 16-team tournament field the morning after the partial reveal.

Tournament kickoff

The 16-team tournament is set to begin on Tuesday on NXT.

Model: gpt-5-mini•Generated: Sep 20, 9:00 PM

Sources Covering This Story

Cageside Seats

Timeline

Sep 20, 8:30 PM

WWE NXT’s Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic: What to watch for in its 2026 return

Cageside Seats • WWE

One of the most newsworthy items from WWE programming this past week was the announcement that the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic is returning. This Tuesday on NXT, the 16-team tournament, originally created in 2015, will kick off its 11th iteration. Earlier this week, NXT GM Robert Stone went on Busted Open Radio and announced the first entrants: the NXT Tag Team Champions, Vanity Project, and the AAA Tag Team Champions, the Wagner Brothers. NXT announced six more teams, including multiple former champions, on their X account yesterday, and went right back and announced the complete field this morning. With the action set to kick off in less than 48 hours, let’s look at the Dusty Cup’s history and what it suggests about who might win the 2026 edition. Dusty Classic’s origins date back to the late 80s In the late 1980s, one of the National Wrestling Alliance’s (NWA) marquee events was the Crockett Cup, a tag team tournament established in honor of Jim Crockett Sr., founder of Jim Crock

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