The Usos have had their fair share of WrestleMania moments so far in their career. It’s just that a bunch of them have come during pre-shows and not main events.
This should have been their year. Of course, they were never going to headline the second night of WrestleMania 39. That spot was always going to go to their Tribal Chief, Roman Reigns, whether he faced The Rock or, as it turned out, Cody Rhodes.
But as anyone who’s been watching WWE programming for the last 10 months knows, the Bloodline saga grew into something much more than Reigns and his relationships with the people around him. Sami Zayn injected not just life and longevity into the story, but a whole new web of personal interactions that became compelling in their own right.
One of the best parts of the entire drama has been Zayn’s emotional roller coaster ride with Jey Uso. Originally the most skeptical of Sami’s true intentions for wanting to join the Bloodline, Jey was eventually won over when it mattered most, coming to Zayn’s defense during his “trial” at Raw XXX.
Sami and Jey became so tight that there was a serious question about Jey’s loyalties over the last few weeks that only was truly answered when he delivered the most impactful superkick since Shawn Michaels turned on Marty Jannetty. Jey said he was always going to side with blood, but it was presented in a way that meant you were never sure until his actions made it clear.
With all due respect to the work Rhodes (mostly) and Reigns have done to sell their showdown, Zayn facing off against The Usos would be the hottest possible match to be the main event of night 1 in Los Angeles — particularly if it means Zayn reunites with Kevin Owens to do so, since their long, complicated history adds another layer to it.
A Zayn/Owens vs. Usos tag team title match is certainly a more organic fit for that spot than Rhea Ripley challenging Charlotte Flair for the SmackDown Women’s Championship. Is that a main event caliber match? Based on in-ring work, absolutely, and Ripley has raised her profile quite a bit over the past year. There’s also a very good argument to be made that a women’s match deserves one of the two main event slots annually now.
(On top of that, there’s a school of thought that WWE is intentionally putting the two Royal Rumble winners in the main events, but winning the Rumble has only ever guaranteed a world title shot, not necessarily a main event.)
Still, pro wrestling is in large part a storytelling business, and from that perspective, nothing WWE could use to close night 1 could touch this tag team title match — which is still hypothetical, by the way, since it hasn’t been made official yet.
Maybe the problem is that WWE doesn’t see a tag team match as worthy of that kind of spotlight. It did once upon a time; the main event of the very first WrestleMania was a tag team bout that didn’t even have any titles at stake.
That was the only time, however, and tag team matches have been pretty low profile in recent years. As evidence, consider that The Usos have performed as a duo in seven previous WrestleManias, and have been on the pre-show four times and the opening match once.
It’s true that many years, there isn’t a tag team match that has the same level of build leading to WrestleMania as the premiere singles matches. This time there is one, and unless WWE changes course or all the well-connected outlets are wrong, it’s not getting the honor of being one of this year’s main events. That leaves you wondering exactly what it would take for that to change.