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Tag Team Appreciation Month

The Usos (Jimmy and Jey Uso)

2010 - Present

FCW Tag Team Champions

WWE Raw Tag Team Champions

WWE SmackDown Tag Team Champions

WWE Undisputed World Tag Team Champions

 

Written by Canadian Bulldog

The Usos

Is it possible that Jimmy and Jey Uso are the greatest brother tag team in wrestling history?

That statement covers a ton of ground, as you're looking at everyone from The Steiner Brothers to Matt & Jeff Hardy, from The Brisco Brothers to The Briscoes, and from The Young Bucks to the Lucha Bros. And yet, The Usos are still in the conversation, thanks in no small part to their work in the past five years.

Strangely enough, the team's WWE debut was quite underwhelming, especially when you consider their lineage; as part of the legendary Anoa'i family, they are the sons of WWE Hall of Famer Rikishi. Instead of a hero's welcome, they were paired with Tamina Snuka (another family member) as foes for The Hart Dynasty. The brothers lost that feud and were quickly marginalized on the main roster for years to come.

While The Usos were consistently part of the WWE roster, they struggled for the first several years, often on the losing end to such teams as Vladimir Kozlov & Santino Marella, The Prime Time Players, The Ascension and Primo and Epico.

Eventually, they turned babyface and changed up their look somewhat, painting their faces and acting like more "traditional" Samoan wrestlers to capitalize on their family lineage. It still wasn't until 2015 when the duo got their first taste of WWE tag team gold, defeating The New Age Outlaws on an episode of Raw.

While the win was impressive (as was their lengthy first reign), it wasn't enough to truly get The Usos over. They ended up on the pre-show of WrestleMania XXXI and then Jey suffered an injury. Upon Jey's return, it still took them a while to be taken seriously as a tag team, which finally began to happen in late 2016 when they changed their personas once again to become the guardians of The Uso Penitentiary.

Showing off personality that they'd previously hadn't demonstrated in the ring, Jimmy and Jey became top heels on SmackDown, engaging in a lengthy and impressive feud with The New Day, one that they could revisit at any time without the rivalry feeling played out. Subsequent matches against The Bar, The Revival and other top teams showed that The Usos were thriving during their second act.

The third act of The Usos began in 2020, initially as a side-act to the Roman Reigns heel turn. But the more Jimmy and Jey got involved in the storyline, the more over each of them became. By the time the headlined their first WrestleMania (Night One of WrestleMania XXXIX), The Usos had become a household name and had proved that they were now able to hang with the best WWE had to offer.

Are they the greatest brother tag team of all time? Perhaps not... but they The Ones.

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