Jey Uso Wins First World Title

Jey Uso defeated Gunther at WWE WrestleMania 41 to become the new World Heavyweight Champion, and he did it by taking a page out of Gunther’s playbook.

Kicking off WWE’s two-night extravanganza in Allegiant Stadium, the leader of the Yeet movement blasted Gunther with a spear and a barrage of top rope splashes before tapping out Gunther to his own sleeper submission, forcing “The Ring General” to call it quits for the first time in his WWE career.

Uso’s incredible win capped off what has been a meteoric rise in popularity for the longtime tag team performer over the course of the past year. An eight-time WWE tag team champion, Uso became the breakout star of The Bloodline saga in late 2024 and left WWE with no choice but to push him to the moon.

At WrestleMania 41, he reached the apex of WWE when, after playing mind games with Gunther all match, he used Gunther’s own move to put him away.

What a rise for Uso, too.

As Uso surpassed top stars like Roman Reigns and CM Punk to become WWE’s top merchandise seller, the Yeet movement catapulted Uso to not one but two of the most shocking upsets in WWE history. The first came in February when Uso, in arguably the most star-studded men’s Royal Rumble match ever, last eliminated 16-time world champion John Cena to punch his ticket to WrestleMania 41.

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The second came tonight in Las Vegas when Uso defeated Gunther to end the dominant star’s World Heavyweight Champion reign. During his stint in WWE, Gunther has been one of the most protected stars in the company, dominating in NXT before having the greatest Intercontinental Championship reign ever and then transitioning to another dominant title run as World Heavyweight Champion.

Even Uso himself had previously lost multiple title matches to Gunther, which is one of the many reasons why it was so surprising when Uso won the Royal Rumble and then set his sights on Gunther, the man he’d already failed to beat twice. En route to WrestleMania 41, the story told between Gunther and Uso wasn’t exactly an epic one.

It focused on far too many in-ring segments that followed the same script, and WWE even utilized Uso’s viral botched finish against Austin Theory to craft the idea that Uso was “slipping” during his feud with Gunther. WWE shifted its focus to Uso doubting himself after his previous losses to Gunther, building up the possibility that he’d fail yet again.

But a loss on “The Grandest Stage of Them All?” Uso wasn’t going to let that happen.

In similar fashion to stars like Daniel Bryan and Kofi Kingston before him, Uso’s soaring popularity forced WWE’s hand. In a WWE loaded with megastars like Reigns, Punk and Cody Rhodes, Uso has been generating arguably the loudest crowd reactions in WWE despite any supposed backlash to his push.

It became apparent that as Uso had crowds chanting his entrance song and dancing along with him, just as they were in Allegiant Stadium, that he was experiencing the type of organic rise that is impossible to create forcefully. Uso was able to stand out on his own despite his ties to The Bloodline, the main purpose of which was to create new stars.

That’s exactly what it accomplished, too.

Uso became, like his nickname says, “Main Event” Jey Uso, and now, he can forever add one more accolade to his name: World Heavyweight Champion.