MID-Tier Match Reviews: Jey Uso vs. Jimmy Uso – WWE WrestleMania XL

Well, here we are, the eve of WrestleMania. The long-awaited biggest two-night affair of the year in professional wrestling. Like most of you I’m excited to see what’s going to happen given how much effort has been put into making this show as big as last year’s show if not bigger. But there’s one match that I’m personally not looking forward to all that much because it involves someone that, in my opinion, isn’t worth the spot: Jey Uso.

I’m going to get this out of the way now: I don’t like either of the Usos and never have. Yes, they’ve been around forever and they had a great match two years ago at WrestleMania 39. But I’ve never seen anything special about them. They move and hit like bigger versions of the Young Bucks and their greatest success came from them being in Roman Reigns’ orbit for so many years. And in my opinion Jey Uso the character isn’t even “over”; his entrance and his catchphrase are over. He’s like the wrestling version of a musical artist that’s all look and marketing but once you actually put a mic in front of him you realize that he’s artificial and autotuned to shit.

Then again, his opponent tonight could be so much better. I might be the only person in the world that wants GUNTHER to win tonight but that’s in all likelihood not going to happen. I don’t doubt GUNTHER will carry Jey to a good match and Jey is at least experienced enough to play the hits and get the biggest pops here and there. But once WrestleMania ends and Jey Uso moves past GUNTHER, how will he actually fare as a champion? Well maybe on way to answer that question is to see how well he did against the one person who knows him best, that being his twin brother.

So despite my own personal apathy towards these two men, I’m going into this match with a blank slate. With that, let’s see if their match from last year’s WrestleMania was really that bad or not…

The Story

Jimmy and Jey Uso had been a tag team for years and years on both RAW and SmackDown. As identical twins it was hard for some people to distinguish them from each other so they stayed together. Like more emphatic versions of Edge & Christian, both of these two were presumed to remain a tag team forever since they wouldn’t ever be able to branch out as individuals. But then things changed.

After an extended on-again-off-again civil war within the Bloodline, Jey Uso began branching out on his own. He capitalized on his nickname “Main Event Jey Uso” and started screaming “YEET” which soon became his catchphrase. This, coupled with his entrance theme, made him into a huge star (personal anecdote: when I was at the 2024 Royal Rumble I remember looking around during his entrance theme and I was…something else. The cameras didn’t capture it all that well but the sight of some 50,000 people dancing and reacting to his lights and music was incredible.)

Anyway so as Jey started getting more popular he eventually found himself challenging Reigns, only for Jimmy to cost him the match. Jimmy provided a tortured explanation for his actions, something about preventing his brother from acquiring power and becoming corrupted by it. Yet as Jey tried to distance himself from the Bloodline and moved to RAW, Jimmy followed him and kept interfering in his brother’s matches. It seemed like Jimmy was the one who wasn’t ready to accept that his brother was becoming something else and was branching out on his own. Ultimately it was decided that these two brothers would face off at WrestleMania, one on one, for the first time.

The Match

This took place on April 6, 2024. It was rated ¾* out of five by the Wrestling Observer’s Dave Meltzer. It was also voted the WON’s Worst Match of the Year 2024, beating such luminary matches as: Marufuji vs Kota Ibushi and his broken-down body, Billy Gunn vs. Jay White, an AEW vs. CMLL match involving Alberto Del Dio and some clowns, and the 2024 Women’s Royal Rumble match.

Of course, we must take these votes with a grain of salt. Even among the WON’s readers only a small percentage of those actually take the time to vote in these awards. As such, those awards are representative of a VERY small portion of the larger wrestling fandom. And yet it’s not something worth ignoring completely: while calling this one match the single worst of 2024 is certainly a strong opinion, the general consensus has been is that the Usos’ match was, at the very least, the single biggest disappointment at last year’s WrestleMania.

Anyway, back to the match…

Jey doesn’t waste time and dives onto Jimmy during his entrance. There’s some light ringside brawling and then the match officially begins. Jey launches Jimmy back out of the ring and lands another dive. Jey lands a kick from the apron followed by a top-rope crossbody. Jey charges but Jimmy goes for the pop-up Samoan Drop but clearly botches it. Michael Cole tries to cover for them by saying Jey lands some kind of neckbreaker (A for effort). Jimmy hits two Umaga corner hip attacks and gloats for a bit, slowing the match to a crawl. Jey blocks another corner attack and hoes for a diving ax handle but Jimmy hits first with an uppercut.

Jimmy lands four superkicks as a “Jimmy sucks” chant breaks out with minimal energy. After landing a fifth one he mocks his brother some more then goes for a splash. Jey rolls away and lands a superkick of his own. They drop their selling as a YAY/BOO YEET/NO punch exchange ensues. Jimmy escapes a Samoan drop, lands another kick, and an uppercut. Jey hits with the very same but Jimmy counters with a spinning jump kick. Then Jey does the same. More delays and no-selling. Then they gold their heads with light-looking taps to the head. Jimmy lands another superkick. Then back and forth they go trading these kicks like they’re Pokémon cards. Man, this crowd has lost all of its energy.

Jey lands a big running superkick and then teases one more. He charges but Jimmy gets a hand up. Jimmy starts apologizing and pleading for mercy and now the crowd wakes up. They shake hands, then they hug, and then Jimmy superkicks Jey. What, NOW the kick is supposed to be lethal? Jimmy follows with a top-rope splash but only gets two. Both men charge from opposite corners but Jey connects with a spear. Then Jey flies off the top rope with a splash. One, two, three. Jey wins!

Winner after 11:07: Jey Uso

Review

You know it’s a sad state of affairs when the audience shows more energy and enthusiasm for a wrestler’s pre- and post-match segments than the actual match itself but that’s what we’ve got here. This went just over ten minutes but felt over double. It was slow, boring, and featured lazy action. For two brothers that might well have literally been joined at the hip as partners had no chemistry as opponents. The action was disjointed with uneven pacing. They dragged some parts out for way too long. There was honestly no heat for this match whatsoever, though apparently part of that stems from some people live having literally no heat due to the temperature.

Granted, that last part rests on the company and the venue but the Usos could’ve overcome that by actually making this feel like a blood feud between two brothers that actually hate each other. It was such an easy story to tell because it resonates with so many people: how many of you out there have a sibling with whom you’ve had problems in the past and wanted to resolve them the old fashioned way? These two could’ve parlayed that basic premise into an exciting brawl but instead they went with the safest, and in my opinion, laziest, direction possible: a bland superkick exchange without flow or structure. When they weren’t trash-talking each other in the cheesiest bad-movie-script way possible they were going back and forth between moves hurting and moves not meaning anything. It was like they had no idea what to do once they were in the ring. If this were to have been a PPV main-event then I can guarantee there’d be people booing this or demanding refunds, to the point that even now-universally-beloved Triple H would be given flak for it.

Final Rating: DUD

While there were some matches in 2024 that were categorically worse than this one, it is much more of a disappointment since it was on the biggest stage and how badly they fumbled this. This could’ve been an actual war with a sense of personal edge that easily resonated with the fans but instead these two men had no unique ideas of their own and settled into a bland performance without any real sense of risk or hostility. It was as if they knew only the entrance and the end matter and didn’t want to put any thought into that eleven-minute period whatsoever. And what makes this disappointment of a match even more egregious is that both guys were present for two of the most heated and exciting matches from the past two years in them versus Owens and Zayn and Reigns vs Zayn for EC 2023. Both of them were part of two heated matches in front of passionate crowds that made telling a story so much easier yet it seems like they learned nothing from either of those experiences.

This match makes me a bit worried for tonight because I have this sinking feeling that Jey is going to bring more of this. He’ll be all sizzle and no steak, putting most of his effort into his entrance and his post-match segment while the bulk of the heavy lifting will fall on GUNTHER’s shoulders. Maybe I’m being overly pessimistic but I would very much like to be proven wrong. For all the people who shelled out thousands of dollars on airfare and accommodation to go to WrestleMania live I hope they get more than their money’s worth. And for everyone watching this from whenever you are on earth I hope that all six hours of it (of which one hour total will be dedicated to entrances). But if history means anything then we’re in for a big gamble with Jey’s performance tonight. Will he show growth and progress from his fiasco last year, or will he slip back into old habits show that he’s all talk and no action? Tune in tonight to find out.

Thanks for reading.