With The Motor City Machine Guns making their AEW debut at All Out, now's a good time for AEW fans to learn about this amazing tag team!

The Motor City Machine Guns appearing for AEW is huge news for fans following their careers. Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley formed superb chemistry when using their real-life friendship and shared passion for wrestling to enhance their careers. Few tag teams felt as fluid in the ring or authentic having conversations as Shelley and Sabin did.

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AEW has booked the Motor City Machine Guns to unite with former TNA stars Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt. FTR badly wanting to work with Sabin and Shelley likely influenced this decision due to the six-man tag match being what brings them in. The following facts and stories about the Motor City Machine Guns will shine a brighter light on them before their AEW debuts.

The most important chapter of the TNA history for the Motor City Machine Guns featured their best of five series with Beer Money. Both teams were highly respected and viewed as the standard-bearers of tag team wrestling at the time.

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TNA trusted them to have a best of five series, which was a concept they never used as much as WWE or WCW did. Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley winning the fifth and deciding match was their defining moment that caused many to view them as the greatest team of the modern era.

The tag team division of TNA felt defined by the success of Motor City Machine Guns, but they had legacies in the X-Division as well. Chris Sabin still has the record for most X-Division Championship runs with a total of eight.

Alex Shelley joined that list during the Motor City Machine Guns era when he finally won the gold. TNA told the story of Sabin beating Sabin in the finals of a tournament for the vacated belt. Shelley winning a classic match saw Sabin having nothing but love for his partner’s big moment.

The careers of Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley went in different directions for a few years after ending the tag run. Shelley grew unhappy in TNA at the end and decided to leave to better his life. A new passion going back to school and getting to fit New Japan tours into his schedule made Shelley happier.

The duo of Shelley and KUSHIDA became arguably the best junior tag team of the era as the Time Splitters. Sabin spent more time in TNA before moving all over the scene and coming back to Impact. There was a short-term team between Sabin and Matt Sydal known as Love Gun in PWG for a short time.

Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin remained friends, but they didn’t expect to reunite when moving in their own paths. Sabin ended up enjoying coming back to Impact with his mentor Scott D’Amore running the show, and Shelley loved wrestling for various companies against talented wrestlers secondary to his day job.

Both wrestlers even said that they didn’t expect to have a reunion tour like most teams until it happened. Impact becoming a fun place to work brought Shelley back and Sabin was already having fun there. The Motor City Machine Guns reunited in a great moment to give Impact some buzz with a lot of interest since then.

Any diehard wrestling fan should find the matches between the Motor City Machine Guns and Apollo 55 in New Japan. Finn Balor’s NJPW stint as Prince Devitt saw him having a superb run both in the junior heavyweight singles division and tag division each.

The duo of Devitt and Ryusuke Taguchi became a standard-bearer for the junior tag division. Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin getting booked as part of the TNA working relationship led to a trilogy of classic matches between the two teams. This was the first introduction to the future Balor by many American fans that fell in love with his work.

TNA ran one of their most interesting storylines when having the Main Event Mafia heel faction feud with the TNA Frontline group. AJ Styles and Samoa Joe were the leaders of the younger talents and into conflict with the Motor City Machine Guns.

The portrayal of Sabin and Shelley made it seem like they didn’t care until Joe and Styles confronted them. Fans started to cheer the Motor City Machine Guns more during this time when they started to show a different side than the lazy heels.

Ring of Honor booked some TNA talents that were approved to appear if they made sense for both sides. The Motor City Machine Guns loved wrestling longer matches in Ring of Honor working with talents like Bryan Danielson, Seth Rollins, Kevin Owens, Sami Zayn and plenty other greats.

However, certain shows saw TNA demanding that neither Chris Sabin nor Alex Shelley get pinned. An ROH Tag Team Championship match of the Motor City Machine Guns challenging the Kings of Wrestling saw TNA changing plans. ROH was forced to have the Briscoes interfere for a DQ to piss off the NYC fans instead of having Chris Hero and Claudio Castagnoli score the pin.

There was a culture clash in TNA between the younger talents, veterans and creative team. Mick Foley wrote a book about his TNA time and referenced the Motor City Machine Guns being punished for the perception of their attitudes.

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Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley didn’t truly break out as a top team for a few years since TNA didn’t push them that hard. Foley and a few other wrestlers implied that Vince Russo and other writers viewed Sabin and Shelley as disrespectful for always questioning their booking to land them in hot water.

The Young Bucks likely played a major role in the Motor City Machine Guns appearing for AEW. All four wrestlers have been close friends for years since working together in PWG. Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley took rare PWG bookings to work with Matt and Nick Jackson.

TNA giving the Young Bucks a tryout came due to the Motor City Machine Guns going to bat for them. The tryout match was even against Sabin and Shelley before an Impact taping. Matt and Nick were given the chance to show all their best stuff due to the Motor City Machine Guns trying to help them get signed.

The Motor City Machine Guns are often the top pick for greatest TNA tag team ever, but their best matches didn’t even take place there. Ring of Honor, PWG and New Japan all booked Chris Sabin and Alex Shelley as well to enhance their cards.

Cagematch is among the most ideal platforms to find unbiased and collective opinions. Only two TNA matches would crack the ten highest rated matches of their run together. ROH is actually the place where the Motor City Machine Guns had their best matches in different incarnations of the company.

Joey is a writer with a decade of experience writing about sports, entertainment, and pop culture. Pro wrestling is his strongest passion with a lifetime fandom and countless live shows attended.