Motor City Machine Guns

The Motor City Machine Guns are an American professional wrestling tag team consisting of Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin. They are signed to WWE, where they perform on the SmackDown brand. They are best known for their tenure in Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA). The team name is a play on "Motor City", a nickname for the two's hometown of Detroit.

Originally forming a team in Pro Wrestling Zero1 in 2006, Shelley and Sabin started teaming up more frequently later that year in TNA until Shelley left TNA in 2012. During this first run, they won the TNA World Tag Team Championship once as well as New Japan Pro Wrestling (NJPW)'s IWGP Junior Heavyweight Tag Team Championship. The two reformed Motor City Machine Guns in 2016 in Ring of Honor, where they won the ROH World Tag Team Championship, until Shelley retired from wrestling in 2018.

In 2020, the Motor City Machine Guns made their return to pro wrestling, working with several promotions including TNA and NJPW (where they won the Strong Openweight Tag Team Championship). In 2024, they signed with WWE, where they quickly won the WWE Tag Team Championship. With this win, they became the first tag team to win championships in WWE, TNA, ROH, and NJPW. The team also was named as the Tag Team of the Year in 2010 by both Pro Wrestling Illustrated and The Baltimore Sun.

Shelley and Sabin first started teaming in Pro Wrestling Zero1-Max in 2006, winning the Zero-1 Max International Lightweight Tag Team Championship from Minoru Fujita and Ikuto Hidaka on August 25. They held the title for almost two years before dropping them back to Fujita and his new partner Takuya Sugawara. In the United States, the pair had short runs in the independent promotions Pro Wrestling Guerrilla and Ring of Honor under the names Motor City Machine Gun, and Murder City Machine Guns, respectively. The team's work for other companies eventually ended when their main employer, Total Nonstop Action Wrestling (TNA), requested their wrestlers stop taking bookings with certain independent promotions, during their current run with WWE they adapted to a street hoodlum-Backstreet Brawler based wrestling style and entrance music with links to Brawling Brutes.

It was not until April 2007 that the team debuted in TNA, where they had previously been singles wrestlers in the company's X Division. After briefly working together while wrestling as opponents in an Xscape match at the annual Lockdown pay-per-view they became regulars in the tag team division. Initially using the Murder City name, the team's moniker was later changed to the more "PG" Motor City. After Shelley and Sabin had teamed for a few weeks in TNA, Kevin Nash—who had a history with both men and was also a Detroit native—was brought in as their manager, ending his previous alliances with Jay Lethal and Sonjay Dutt in the process, though his association with the group was short lived.

The team continued to work in independent promotions in parallel with their work in TNA, getting a run with the Illinois–based All American Wrestling's Tag Team Championship between September 2007 and January 2008. In October 2007 at Bound for Glory the team interfered in a tables match between Team 3D (Brothers Ray and Devon) and the Steiner Brothers (Scott and Rick), trying to prevent Team 3D from cheating and effectively helping the Steiners win the match. The following month at Genesis the Motor City Machine Guns surprised Team 3D and defeated them in a tag team match. Later in the event Ray and Devon, embarrassed by their loss, attacked the X Division Champion Jay Lethal and his number one contender Sonjay Dutt after their match and declared a war on the X Division as a whole, demanding that the entire X Division and all the members therein be disbanded and removed from TNA. The entire feud focused mainly upon Team 3D (including a new member in Johnny Devine, who was dubbed "Brother Devine") against the Machine Guns and Jay Lethal.

During the feud, Team 3D awarded the stolen X Division Championship to Devine, before Devine won the title outright. The two teams faced off in an Ultimate X match for the title at Final Resolution. Prior to the pay-per-view, it was claimed that Ray and Devon were too heavy to support themselves on the cables, so they "broke" Sabin and Shelley's fingers, making them unable to climb. Team 3D won this match by using a ladder to get Devon up to the title belt (which broke the "unwritten rule" of the match). At Against All Odds, Sabin, Shelley, and Lethal won a Street Fight with the existence of the X Division as a whole (excluding Devine) on the line. Sabin and Shelley were beaten off early in the match, essentially making it a handicap match of Team 3D against Lethal. As agreed in the pre–match stipulations, the win resulted in Lethal being given back the X Division title and the members of Team 3D essentially being disqualified from future matches until they could all drop their weight below super heavyweight status.

They were members of Team TNA alongside Kaz and Curry Man in the 2008 edition of the TNA World X Cup, but lost to Team Mexico at Victory Road. They then slipped into the role of tweeners, showing disrespect to Christian Cage, A.J. Styles, Consequences Creed, B.G. James and The Latin American Xchange however still being cheered heavily by the fans and showing respect for the fans.