The SmarK Rant for WWE Playlist – The Bloodline Complete Story
Oh yeah, now THIS is the kind of stuff that the WWE Network should be doing more of, replacing the old DVD compilations with 2 hour storyline recaps for those of us who don’t want to watch 25 hours of TV shows every week to catch up on the story headed into Wrestlemania.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z19Cad44Jdo
2020:
Roman Reigns returns at Summerslam 2020 and destroys the Fiend, as the Award Winning Thunderdome goes crazy. Roman calling him “just a freak in a mask who can’t handle the responsibility” proved to be quite prophetic.
Smackdown Aug 28 – Roman promises to win the title at the PPV coming up on the weekend, introducing new manager Paul Heyman in the process.
Payback 2020 – Roman spears Braun Strowman and wins the title, as promised.
Smackdown Sept 4 – Jey Uso wins a four-way match over Riddle and Sheamus and Baron Corbin, earning a title match at Clash of Champions while brother Jimothy is out with an injury.
Smackdown Sept 11 – Jey teams with Roman and they beat Sheamus & Corbin on Smackdown after Reigns takes his time getting to the ring and Jey has to get it done himself. And of course Roman tags himself in and spears Sheamus to get the win and the glory.
Smackdown Sept 25 – Jey Uso confronts Roman about getting left out of the family and not being able to seek glory for himself, plus complains about people not being able to tell the difference between himself and his brother. Well he’s got a point about that one. But as he’s appealing to the Award Winning WWE Thunderdome crowd, Roman sucker punches him from behind with the superman punch and warns Jey that’s the only he’s taking is an ASS WHOOPING.
Clash of Champions 2020 – Roman beats the shit out of cousin Jey as promised, demanding to be acknowledged as the Head of the Table, until Jim finally has to come out and throw in the towel. But that’s not good enough for Roman, who demands acknowledgement from Jimmy as well in order to stop the beating.
Smackdown Oct. 2 – Roman gaslights Jey further, telling him that he was just trying to make Jey a bigger star and help him make money for his family, and all Jey had to do was acknowledge Roman as Tribal Chief. Because, you know, it was Roman’s birthright from the start and all. Really, it was JEY who was being disrespectful. So he’ll give Jey another match at Hell in a Cell.
Smackdown Oct. 23 – Jimmy Uso sits at the Tribal Chief’s table, dressed as Jey, and interrupts a Reigns promo, distracting him long enough for Jey to attack. Now see, Jey was JUST complaining about people not being able to tell them apart. Let’s face it, Roman was right to put the hypocritical Usos in their place. Man makes a lot of sense. So Roman gets even more pissed off and promises to not only make the Usos quit at the PPV, but make them ACKNOWLEDGE HIM. Or else they’re all out of the family.
Hell in a Cell 2020 – Roman indeed makes Jey say “I quit” with some really tough love, in what I consider to be the pinnacle of the shitty pandemic empty arena style, where you got all kinds of vocalized drama that wasn’t really possible with crowds. So Jimmy appears to appeal to Roman’s humanity, and then Roman puts him in a guillotine until Jey has to give it up.
Smackdown Oct. 30 – Jey finally falls in line and joins the Roman program, turning on Daniel Bryan and laying him out with a flying splash because he finally understands the point that Roman was trying to make. So Roman is like “OK, cool, now make Bryan understand too”. So Jey beats him down further and splashes him through the announce table.
Survivor Series 2020 – Jey represents Smackdown and has to go 5-on-Uce against the RAW guys, quickly falling victim to Keith Lee’s powerbomb to lose the match for his team. Later in the show, Roman is displeased with the loss, and Jimmy sticks up for his brother, but Roman tells him to get lost and uses an awesome slippery slope fallacy to blame everything on Jey. The person who was writing this stuff had to be an A-Plus carny gaslighting son of a bitch in real life, and I think we know who that was.
Smackdown Nov. 27 – Roman continues to bury Jey and psychologically break him down, calling him a failure who reflects badly on the family after the PPV loss. So Otis comes out for a match with his stupid “Blue Collar Solid” gimmick, and Jey channels his inadequacies and beats the shit out of him with a chair, becoming the thing that Roman had been trying to create all along.
Smackdown Dec. 4 – Jey wants to win a tag team match on his own, but Roman demands that Jey tag him in so he can have the glory of beating KO himself. Jey tries to defy him and Kevin makes a comeback, so Roman has to come in and finish it himself with the guillotine. And then after Jey does all the violent work demanded by Roman, Reigns turns on him and assaults his cousin with a chair because Jey didn’t obey fast enough and exactly the way that was demanded.
Smackdown Dec. 25 – Kevin Owens faces Roman Reigns in a cage match for the Universal title, but Jey manages to handcuff KO through the cage and prevent him from escaping and winning the title. And Roman arrogantly walks out the door to retain as a result.
2021:
Smackdown Apr. 9 – Jey Uso eliminates Nakamura to win the Andre battle royale
Wrestlemania 37 – Roman Reigns beats Daniel Bryan & Edge in a triple threat match to retain the title after stacking them up like cordwood. He even chased Daniel Bryan out of the promotion and over to an outlaw mudshow!
Smackdown Apr. 30 – Roman debuts his new music.
Smackdown May 7 – Jimmy Uso returns from his injury and seemingly rejoins the family.
Smackdown June 4 – Roman is busy beating the hell out of Dominick Mysterio and his Power Ranger outfit, but now it’s JIMMY who is disrespecting the family and refusing to acknowledge the Tribal Chief. Jey is fully on Team Roman of course, because of their messed up abusive relationship.
Smackdown June 11 – Jimmy cuts a bitter promo against Roman, and Roman sends Jey to go deal with his brother, which leads to a confrontation backstage where Jimmy and Roman bicker over Jey and Roman continues trying to gaslight them both. Jey storms off and Roman does a fantastic job of making Jimmy think that he was the problem all along.
Smackdown July 9 – Roman finally gets through to the Usos that if they listen to him and do what he says, they can be tag team champions again, but they all have to work together as a family…and do exactly what Roman says and does. Sounds reasonable to me.
Smackdown July 16 – The Bloodline teams up for the first time and beats the Mysterios & Edge with fans finally back in the building again.
Money in the Bank 2021 – The Usos win the tag team titles, as promised, from the Mysterios on the pre-show.
Summerslam 2021 – Roman beats John Cena to retain the title, but Brock Lesnar returns as the VIKING COWBOY to challenge him again.
Smackdown Sep. 10 – Paul Heyman wants to know why Brock wants to go after the Universal title and cause trouble, but Brock claims that Heyman knew he was going to be there and kept it hidden from Roman.
Crowd Jewel 2021 – Paul Heyman continues to play both sides, throwing the title belt between Brock and Roman during their match, allowing the Usos to interfere and help Roman retain the title while having plausible deniability either way.
Smackdown Dec. 17 – Roman has had quite enough of Heyman’s waffling, and Paul appears to side with Brock in their deal and gets fired as a result.
2022:
Royal Rumble 2022 – Paul Heyman chooses his side and turns on Brock.
Wrestlemania 38 – Roman beats Brock to unify the titles.
Smackdown Apr. 8 – Now that Roman has two belts, he demands that the Usos also go out and unify THEIR titles.
Smackdown Apr. 22 – Sami Zayn introduces himself to the Bloodline backstage for the first time, claiming to be a locker room leader who has all the dirt and can help them out in exchange for some help with his own troubles.
Wrestlemania Backlash 2022 – The Bloodline beats RKBro & Drew as we get deeper into the period of Roman going over EVERYONE all the time. That one still kind of bugs me because they could have made a new challenger and instead it was just more of Roman running through everyone to no end.
Smackdown May 20 – Paul Heyman demands that the Usos go to RAW and unify the tag team titles, OR ELSE. And indeed, that’s exactly what they do.
Smackdown May 27 – Sami Zayn pitches a deal to the new unified champions, asking to be an Honorary Uce in exchange for his loyalties to them. The Usos are more amused than anything but agree to go along with it.
Smackdown June 3 – The Usos beat RKBro in a rematch thanks to Sami playing Roman’s music in the truck to distract the babyfaces.
Smackdown Aug. 5 – The Usos are getting tired of hearing Sami talk without backing it up and demand that he starts pulling his weight.
Smackdown Aug. 19 – Roman brawls with Drew McIntyre in advance of the UK PPV, but Sami Zayn takes the bullet for Roman and allows him to escape unscathed.
Clash at the Castle 2022 – Solo Sikoa debuts and screws Drew out of the title, but that’s OK because Drew sings afterwards to send everyone home happy.
Smackdown Sep. 23 – Solo joins the Bloodline officially and acknowledges Roman without any drama, unlike those troublemaking Usos. This appears to be trouble for Sami Zayn, as Roman tells him to take off the Bloodline shirt and never wear it again…because Roman made him an Honorary Uce shirt that he can wear from now on. But now Jey doesn’t trust him or his acknowledgment of the Tribal Chief.
Smackdown Oct. 7 – Logan Paul causes trouble and tries to disrupt the family.
Smackdown Oct. 28 – Jey Uso has had enough of Sami Zayn and accidentally disrespects Roman while going off on him, which makes for an awesome moment where Roman gives Jey a death glare. So Sami apologizes for Jey, noting that “he hasn’t been feeling very Ucey lately” and everyone breaks up on live TV, helpless to fight it. So Roman threatens to make Sami a full blooded Uso if Jey can’t get it together.
Survivor Series 2022 – Sami Zayn chooses his side and hits KO in the nuts to make sure that the Bloodline wins WarGames.
Smackdown Dec. 30 – Sami and Roman team up to face a returning John Cena and Kevin Owens, resulting in Sami taking the loss.
2023:
RAW Jan. 23 – THE TRIAL OF SAMI ZAYN. Sami does the promo of a lifetime and draws a huge rating with it, as it appears that Solo is going to deal with Sami and spike him…until Jey finally sees the light and stands up for Sami. So Roman cuts him a break and finds him not guilty.
Later in the show, Jimmy Uso gets hurt while defending the tag team titles, so Sami Uso stands in for him and retains the belts.
Royal Rumble 2023 – Sami finally decides whether he’s with the Bloodline or Kevin Owens, turning on Roman to a pop so loud that it blows out the sound for a bit, and then gets beaten down by the Usos. However they don’t show Jey walking out on the team afterwards, which was an important part of the story that they just skip over. Also this is really the point in the recap where things are starting to drag, narratively speaking. Cutting out the Brock stuff would have helped the flow a LOT.
Smackdown Feb. 10 – Jey Uso returns after walking out at the Rumble and reunites with his brother. See now it’s getting weird because they’re missing out on a LOT of stuff that happened early in the year to actually explain the storyline and why Sami split from the Bloodline in the first place, like the secret conversation with Kevin Owens and the Jey walkout at Royal Rumble.
Smackdown Feb. 10 – Sami Zayn tries to drive a wedge by promising that he’s taking out Reigns at Elimination Chamber and Jey can come with him.
Elimination Chamber 2023 – Roman retains the title against Sami, no thanks to Jey Uso.
Smackdown Feb. 24 – Sami confronts Jimmy Uso over their fractured Ucey relationship, but he can’t gaslight Jimmy the same way Roman can, talking nonsense about Roman manipulating Jey and promising that he can save both Usos.
RAW Mar. 6 – Under threat of expulsion by Roman, Jey chooses the Bloodline and lays out Sami Zayn to end their friendship once and for all. Cody Rhodes makes the save, which is the first time he appears in this whole recap, oddly.
Smackdown Mar. 10 – Jey explains that he chose his real family over his fake one, but he had to do it and didn’t have any choice.
And that brings us up to present day.
I know they tried to frame this as “The Bloodline Story” as if it was one continuous three year deal, but it definitely wasn’t. There was three distinct segments here, with the first one being Jey Uso trying to be his own man while his brother was injured and having it backfire on him spectacularly. The second one was the stuff we got for a few months with Brock Lesnar coming out of semi-retirement again because Roman didn’t have any viable challengers in real life for the oil barons to watch. Ultimately it just ended up where we started, with Heyman on Roman’s side and Roman winning all the time. And then the third segment was Sami joining and then turning on the Bloodline.
That being said, I really enjoyed this whole thing! It wasn’t like a perfect blow by blow summation of everything and they left some stuff out, and really the whole Brock Lesnar deal was a side-trip for much of 2021 that could have been cut out altogether, but as a hype piece to get you caught up and explain the story, it was tremendous and didn’t overstay its welcome. Check it out on whatever version of the Network you have, or I think it might even be on the WWE’s YouTube channel as well.