Cade and Murdoch
Lance Cade (left) and Trevor Murdoch
Tag team
Members	Lance Cade Trevor Murdoch
Name(s)	Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch TNT Cade & Murdoch
Billed heights	Cade: 6 ft 5 in (1.96 m)[1] Murdoch: 6 ft 4 in (1.93 m)[2]
Combined billed weight	[undue weight? – discuss][2][1]
Debut	2005

Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch are a professional wrestling tag team that perform for World Wrestling Entertainment on their Raw brand. Since debuting on the September 5 2005 episode of Raw, they have held the World Tag Team Championship on three occasions^[3] and been broken up and reunited once.

Career

Starting out

In August 2005, both Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch were promoted from World Wrestling Entertainment's developmental program, Ohio Valley Wrestling, to the main Raw roster and wrestled dark matches with the team name TNT.^[4][5]

On the August 22 2005 edition of Raw, a vignette was shown showcasing the new tag team of Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch.^[6] Cade and Murdoch were shown in a bar setting, portraying redneck characters; Cade played the role of a smooth-talking cowboy, while Murdoch was depicted as an angry Southern trucker.^view

Cade and Murdoch defeated World Tag Team Champions, Hurricane and Rosey, in a non-title match during their debut match on the September 5, 2005 edition of Raw. ^[7] The win earned them a title shot at Unforgiven, which they won after Murdoch delivered an Elevated DDT to The Hurricane outside of the ring causing him to (kayfabe) suffer a stinger.^[8] They held the title for 6 weeks until November's Taboo Tuesday event, where they lost to Kane and Big Show.^[9]

Break up

Cade and Murdoch wrestled their final match as a tag team on the November 13 2005 (aired November 18) Eddie Guerrero tribute show, when they lost an inter-promotional match against SmackDown!'s Legion of Doom (Road Warrior Animal and Heidenreich).^[10] Two weeks later, on the November 28 Raw, Joey Styles officially announced that Cade and Murdoch were no longer a tag team. In a WWE.com Unlimited segment, Murdoch explained that he had shifted focus to the Intercontinental Championship^[11]

After the break up Murdoch received a small push and became the WWE.com Unlimited "movie critic", ^view while Cade debuted a new "Refined Southern Gentleman" gimmick and nickname. Although the team had split up, they remained "allies" and were often seen together during backstage segments.^[12] Separately, Cade and Murdoch often challenged members of other tag teams to singles matches. Even though they were separated, however, they would aid each other in these matches. During this time they also began to feud with the team of Goldust and Gene Snitsky.^[13]

Reunited

On the April 14 2006 edition of Heat Cade and Murdoch were again announced as a tag team.^[14] They wrestled together again for the first time on the May 19 Heat in a win over Charlie Haas and Viscera.^view During the next few months the team racked up a number of wins on Heat and appeared on Raws Unlimited segment to cut promos stating their intentions to win back the Tag Team title. Later in the year, the two began appearing as "hired guns" for various superstars, including The McMahons (Vince and Shane) and Edge, mostly against D-Generation X (Triple H and Shawn Michaels).^[15][16]

After narrowly losing a chance to win the World Tag Team Championship to The Hardys (Matt and Jeff) on the April 2 2007 episode of Raw,^[17] Lance Cade and Trevor Murdoch began a new feud with them, focusing on the tag title. Weeks later, at the Backlash pay-per-view, they again came up short, and afterwards started a gimmick where they were depicted as supreme sportsmen. They lavished the Hardys with compliments, calling them the "better men", when they performed guest commentary during their matches and started wrestling in an overly clean fashion. They also began showing respect to all of their opponents, shaking hands before and after matches, when before they wouldn't have bothered.

During the June 4 2007 edition of Raw, Cade and Murdoch defeated the Hardys to become two-time World Tag Team Champions after Jeff Hardy missed a Swanton Bomb, giving Cade an opportunity to pin him. During the pin, Jeff had his foot on the bottom rope—which should have caused a rope break, but Murdoch pushed it off before the referee saw it, allowing the pin to continue. After the match, Matt Hardy confronted Cade and Murdoch about Jeff's foot being on the rope, to which both men pled ignorance, before attacking the Hardys.^[18] After becoming Champions again they began a feud with Cryme Tyme (JTG and Shad Gaspard) involving Cryme Tyme stealing and auctioning their belongings,^[19][20] which ended abruptly when Cryme Tyme was released from the company.^[21] Instead they revived their Sportsman gimmick for a feud with Paul London and Brian Kendrick, who took the World Tag Team Championship at a house show on September 5 2007 in South Africa, only to drop them right back to Cade and Murdoch on September 8.^[22] They remained Champions until the December 10 Raw, when Hardcore Holly and Cody Rhodes took the title.^[23]

In wrestling

• Finishing and signature moves
  • Sweet and Sour (Lariat (Cade) / Chop block (Murdoch) combo)
  • Combination Inverted atomic drop (Cade) and Running big boot (Murdoch)
  • Jawbreaker (Murdoch) followed by a Neckbreaker (Cade)
  • Assisted leg drop (Murdoch) from an atomic drop position (Cade)

• Nicknames
  • Redneck Wrecking Crew

Championships and accomplishments

• World Wrestling Entertainment
  • World Tag Team Championship (3 times)^[3]

References

External links

• Cade's WWE.com Profile
• Murdoch's WWE.com Profile