Jey Uso is the brand new world heavyweight champion. Uso defeated Gunther within the opening match of WrestleMania 41 on Saturday evening, making good on the chance he acquired by profitable the Royal Rumble in January.
The win is the fruits of a construct that started for Uso in 2020, a 12 months the place he broke by as a viable singles star within the crowdless ThunderDome interval of the early COVID-19 pandemic. At the moment, Uso was going one-on-one along with his cousin Roman Reigns and earned the moniker “Essential Occasion Jey Uso.” Uso’s reputation continued to develop by intervals each aligned with and preventing in opposition to Reigns and The Bloodline.
After profitable the Rumble, Uso set his sights on Gunther, a person who had defeated him in a February 2024 match for the intercontinental championship, a Might 2024 match within the King of the Ring event, and once more in January when Gunther was in a position to efficiently defend his world heavyweight championship. Uso selected a match with Gunther over one with undisputed WWE champion Cody Rhodes to show he might defeat probably the most dominant males on the WWE roster.
As anticipated from such an enormous match on the WrestleMania stage, each Uso and Gunther repeatedly hit their finest strikes however had been unable to place the opposite away. Uso kicked out of Gunther’s powerbomb, survived being hit with the championship belt and fought off a sleeper maintain to repeatedly frustrate the champion. Down the stretch, Uso known as on Gunther to proceed firing his heavy chops and strikes, even laughing as Gunther brutalized him.
After countering a Gunther powerbomb with a powerbomb of his personal, Uso took to the highest rope to hit his Uso Splash thrice earlier than locking Gunther in a sleeper and forcing Gunther to faucet out.
Uso received the largest match of his life on the largest stage of all of them and his title is now etched into historical past as a world champion. Whereas celebrating his victory, Uso was joined by his twin brother Jimmy because the pair basked within the second.
WWE legend Paul Heyman not too long ago talked to CBS Sports activities’ Shakiel Mahjouri and shared his ideas on why Uso is a person who may be trusted to hold one of many two greatest title belts within the firm, and why a few of the disappointment over the construct to the match between Uso and Gunther expressed by followers must be disregarded.
“Inform me the factors, the metric, the analytic, or the financial foundation by which this criticism is levied on Jey Uso,” Heyman stated. “Right here is info that I, your Clever Man, am aware about. Quarter-hour scores: Jey Uso goes by the roof. Minute-by-minute scores: Jey Uso goes by the roof. T-shirt gross sales on-line; Jey Uso, both primary or quantity two, persistently since even earlier than the Royal Rumble. In-arena t-shirt gross sales; Jey Uso, primary or quantity two, persistently, with only a few dates which are exceptions to the rule since earlier than the Royal Rumble.
“When individuals say, ‘Jey Uso has been sort of a letdown. The response when he received the Rumble was good, however then it simmered down.’ Actually? By what metric? He is driving numbers, he is shifting income, he is a commerce facilitator. He is promoting tickets. He’s bringing in income to an organization that’s publicly traded and due to this fact, with that income and gross income and web income, the inventory goes up. The place has he not scored? Those that say he has not scored or has been disappointing or is lower than he was on the Royal Rumble, have no idea what the f— they’re speaking about.”
The remainder of Night time 1 noticed some fascinating outcomes as effectively. Most notably, Paul Heyman betrayed each CM Punk and Roman Reigns in the principle occasion to align himself with Seth Rollins as Rollins emerged from the triple risk match victorious because of Heyman delivering a pair of low blows. Plus, two different titles modified palms with Jacob Fatu incomes america championship by beating LA Knight and The New Day taking the Uncooked tag staff titles off of Conflict Raiders.
