Are The Prime Time Players Still Together?

Titus O’Neil’s angle with Stardust in recent weeks has left fans wondering whether The Prime Time Players are still a unit.

Last Monday on Raw, O’Neil once again interrupted Stardust’s ‘celestial, cinematic’ rant in the Star Room to urge “The Prince of Dark Matter” to get in touch with reality. Meanwhile, O’Neil’s longtime tag team partner, Darren Young, was in singles action against Bo Dallas in a match taped that night for the latest episode of WWE Superstars. During the contest, announcers Rich Brennan and Byron Saxton addressed the state of The Prime Time Players.

“I talked to Darren Young earlier today and asked him about the state of The Prime Time Players and he said, ‘You know, we’re still boys,'” Brennan said. “Titus’ O’Neil and Darren Young still have each other’s backs, but obviously are just trying to be the best, whether it’s individually or together.”

Saxton added, “For the better part of five years, Titus O’Neil and Darren Young have been best friends, they’ve been tag team partners. They understand each other and they understand the desires to succeed on an individual basis and they support each other.”

While O’Neil and Young appear to be heading in different directions, they have not officially broken up. On WWE Superstars, Young was introduced by ring announcer Lilian Garcia as one-half of The Prime Time Players. He also came out wearing a Prime Time Players T-Shirt to the team’s theme song.

Meanwhile, Young sent out this ominous tweet on Tuesday.

Feeling like this is it. Stand by. pic.twitter.com/Wgcg8jivjB

— nodaysoff D-Young (@DarrenYoungWWE) December 8, 2015

While O’Neil and Young have been a fixture together in WWE since 2012, there are no plans for a big break-up angle. WWE did a break-up angle last year that resulted in O’Neil turning heel on Young and the feeling is that it was of no benefit to the former football player. The angle was meant to launch O’Neil as a heel singles wrestler after he was persistent to WWE brass on turning on Young. Vince McMahon gave in to O’Neil’s request and was said to have told the creative staff it was his opportunity to “sink or swim.”

O’Neil’s singles run was a flop as he consistently lost, even to Young. In July 2014, he formed a dysfunctional tag team with Heath Slater, known as Slater-Gator (a reference to O’Neil being a Florida Gator), to little success. The Prime Times Players reunited in February 2015 and they captured the WWE Tag Team Championship from The New Day at Money in the Bank. They lost them back to The New Day at SummerSlam in a Fatal 4-Way Match that also involved Los Matadores and The Lucha Dragons.

Young being split from O’Neil will almost certainly spell trouble for him since WWE has never shown interest in pushing him as a singles star.