Kevin Owens And Sami Zayn Finally Beat The Usos

Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens ended The Usos’ historic tag team reign as Sami Zayn poetically pinned Jey Uso to a gigantic pop after two Helluva kicks. This was a hard-fought war centered around nearfalls and the essential Bloodline storytelling that has endeared WWE to its fanbase in a major way.

Sami Zayn quickly became a product of changing times within WWE’s fanbase. One where the rise of an organic everyman, the likes of Daniel Bryan in 2014, was ultimately stifled by WWE’s powers that be. But fans accepted it.

With WWE garnering universal acclaim for its Bloodline storyline, it effectively rebuilt faith with its at-times fickle audience. Though television ratings, ticket sales, watch times and a host of key performance indicators that rose alongside The Bloodline and the return of Cody Rhodes, one of WWE’s biggest improvements was immeasurable. Trust.

The trust that fans had in the product led to its least-toxic environment in years as Cody Rhodes was able to seamlessly pick up where Sami Zayn left off. However Sami was not left for dead after his heartbreaking loss to Reigns in his home country. Instead, with WWE’s product hitting on all cylinders, fans remained just as enthusiastic for Zayn and Kevin Owens’ reunion as they did Rhodes’ mission to “finish the story.”

“For, I feel like [for] two years, people have been wanting these viable contenders to dethrone the greatest champion of our era and it never seemed like there was one,” Rhodes told the Cheap Heat podcast (h/t Wrestling Inc).

“Now you have two options. The way I look at it is, give them everything. And the way you give them everything is Sami’s wrestling at the Elimination Chamber in his hometown against Roman, and right now me and Roman are, if he moves on from that, we are wrestling at WrestleMania at the biggest WrestleMania of all time.”

Though Zayn remains an option to win a world championship down the line, fans were perfectly fine with Zayn and Owens dethroning the historic reign of The Usos.

The Usos were SmackDown tag team champions for 619 days and counting. After winning the WWE Raw Tag Team Championships in May of 2022, their undisputed tag titles have become a focal point of WrestleMania season in ways that no tag title reign has before. Similar to Cody Rhodes chasing the historic world title reign of Roman Reigns, Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens set out to make history by dethroning The Usos.

Through the power of The Bloodline storyline, the United States Championship wasn’t the de facto world championship on WrestleMania Night 1—the WWE Undisputed Tag Team Championships were.

From crowd reaction, to match layout, this felt like the rightful main event, and the first tag team main event since WrestleMania 1. After an incredible build, it also was one of the best.