Motor City Machine Guns detail WWE signing, missing out on WrestleMania 41 and incredible TLC match

Watching the Motor City Machine Guns deliver rapid-fire blows on WWE programming is bizarre. Seeing them hoist up the WWE tag team titles was downright surreal. Alex Shelley and Chris Sabin have been WWE-ready for a long time, but it seemed they’d never get their shot. When it finally happened last year, it was a credit to their mindset: always be ready to fire.

The Motor City Machine Guns were to TNA Wrestling’s tag team division what AJ Styles was to the singles ranks: innovators and influencers. Shelley and Sabin’s 2007 to 2012 run set the standard for tandem wrestling. As WWE commentator Corey Graves said in their WWE debut, “they are your favorite tag team’s favorite tag team.“

“When I first started, WWE was the goal,” Sabin told CBS Sports while discussing the Motor City Machine Guns’ inclusion in the WWE 2K25 “New Wave” pack. “This is the year 2000. WWF was around, WCW and ECW were all still in business when I started training. 

“I slowly watched throughout the next year as ECW disappeared, then WCW disappeared, and the hope kind of faded, as far as, ‘What are my options in wrestling?’ I was still an 18-year-old kid just getting in the business.”

The Motor City Machine Guns spent 20 years racking up championship belts and classic matches almost everywhere except WWE. Sabin had no formal WWE contact until 2019 when he was brought in as a guest coach at the company’s Performance Institute. However, Shelley had multiple dialogues with WWE. He had a tryout match in 2005 that led nowhere. WWE offered him a contract in 2019, but he turned it down.

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“I had tabled a WWE contract offer because of the pandemic,” Shelley said. “I was too scared to sign a wrestling contract because the entertainment industry was so up and down. I didn’t know what was going on. Nobody in the world did.”

What makes Motor City Machine Guns’ WWE debuts difficult to fathom is how long we’d been wired to think it wouldn’t happen. Sabin and Shelly have been wrestling since they were teenagers. They’ve been a tag team on-and-off for two decades. But it wasn’t until both men were in their 40s that they signed their names to pro wrestling’s biggest organization.

“We talked directly to Paul [Levesque], Triple H, and he treated us with the utmost respect,” Shelley said. “A huge factor in our decision was wanting to be players on his team. We wanted to be a part of the WWE machine, specifically with him leading the charge.”

Levesque’s respect for them was immediately apparent. Older pro wrestlers are sometimes brought in primarily to give other stars wins. That was not the case for Shelley and Sabin. The Motor City Machine Guns won the coveted WWE tag team titles on their second night on the job, pulling a surprise upset against The Bloodline.

Sabin and Shelley are a perfect wrestling unit: interchangeably the trigger or bullet depending on the target. Beyond the mat, they’re two sides of the same coin. While Sabin waxed poetic about winning the WWE tag team titles, Shelley spoke with calculated, sniper-like precision.

“We didn’t know until the day of,” Sabin said. “When we arrived at the building that day, we learned we were winning the championships… ‘Is this a dream? Wake me up? Pinch me?'”

“You go into the same mode you’ve been in for 20-plus years as pro wrestlers who’ve been fortunate enough to wrestle all over the world against legends,” Shelley said. “You’re going to kill it, but how will it actually go? We don’t have to think about these things because it’s second nature to us. It’s a huge honor, but it’s a match. We’re expected to do certain things. We were hired because we’re a product, and we were hired to do XYZ. Well, it’s time to do XYZ.”

The Machine Guns credit their longevity to changes in the wrestling landscape. Athletes trend smaller than they used to and maintain their work rate later into their careers. That’s true, but Sabin and Shelley are being modest. Regardless of age, not many tandems move as smoothly as they do. 

Their expertise was on display in the April 25 main event of SmackDown. The Motor City Machine Guns challenged WWE tag team champions the Street Profits and #DIY in a TLC match. It’s lauded as one of the better TLC matches produced. The fan enthusiasm around it was notable. The Las Vegas crowd cheered when it was announced the night before WrestleMania, and then booed when learning it wouldn’t take place that weekend.

“It showed that the fans cared,” Sabin said. “To see the response from the fans and everyone after the match, I think it worked out how it was meant to work out. I’m very happy with everything, and I wouldn’t change a thing.”

“It’s one ear and out the other,” Shelly said, again highlighting the teammates’ contrasting but complementary ethos. “It’s nice we got these accolades, but at the same time, those are done with and don’t benefit us going forward. We need to stay grounded, stay humble and work even harder because if there’s another one, you better believe we’ll want to top it.”

The last eight months have been full of firsts for a duo with 48 combined years of experience. They signed their first WWE contracts, had their first WWE match, and won their first WWE titles. Wednesday marks a new first: Sabin and Shelley’s WWE video game debut. WWE 2K25 launched their “New Wave” downloadable pack on Wednesday, including the Motor City Machine Guns, Giulia and Stephanie Vaquer as playable characters. Sabin was every bit as moved as one would expect.

Check out the full interview with Motor City Machine Guns below.

“I was completely blown away by it,” Sabin said. “It was so accurate. It was so realistic. I can’t believe how good the video games look these days… It’s part of the dream coming true.”

And even Shelley overcame his analytical inclinations when talking about the achievement.

“It doesn’t matter what we do for the rest of our lives,” Shelley said. “The toothpaste is out of the tube. You can’t take this one away from us. It’s ours now.”