wrestling / Columns
The 8-Ball: Top 8 Directions for the Usos
The Usos represent a challenge for the WWE Creative folks. It’s anyone’s guess if the WWE remembers how to book a tag team as a long-term proposition. The formula has been to split up teams and have them pointlessly feud with each other rather than have them stick together. And the WWE loves it some formula. Thing is the Usos are a true tag team. Splitting them up to be singles wrestlers would be a disaster. They’re carbon copies of each other. It works great as a team concept, but it very well could be like the male version of the Bellas if they tried to go their separate ways.
Teams like the Hardys, Los Guerreros and Edge and Christian all built separate identities for themselves during their tag days. When it came time to split they had something unique to offer. The Usos are miles away from there, which means the WWE needs to remember how to do long-term tag team booking. The good news is they’re over with the fans. Buy a ticket to a WWE event and the Usos will give you your money’s worth. They’re a big ball of fun.
This week the Magic 8-Ball will attempt to glean the best ways forward for Rikishi’s boys. They should be consistently in the tag title mix, an ever-present threat for the belts. When WrestleMania 31 rolls around they should be in a high profile tag match, preferable with the title on the line. The tag division needs some linchpins and the Usos should be one of them.
Normally I include at least one heel turn idea in this sort of column. Not this time. The Usos don’t really lend themselves to maleficence. They’re a bit more like their uncle Sam Fatu and less like uncles Afa and Sika. When the Islanders had their heel turn back in the late ‘80s, it worked for Haku, but it always felt forced for Fatu. He was a high flyer with an up tempo style. Since then Shawn Michaels blazed the trail for technically pleasing wrestlers being heels, but it’s not going to take with the Usos. It already didn’t. They debuted as heels in 2010, got a hot push, lost some title matches and then everyone involved realized they were too much fun to be evil. They have skills and, darn it, people like them. Let’s get to it.
If you’ve never seen the ‘70s pulp classicDirty Mary, Crazy Larry, fix that. As mentioned above, the Usos don’t offer a lot of differentiation between themselves. They’re twins. They look the same. They dress the same. I can only assume they both enjoy Doublemint gum. Perhaps it is time to start developing separate personalities for them. Teams normally go the mastermind/star player route, but that’s been done to death. Instead Jimmy can go the Eddie Guerrero route. Yes, he’ll do bad, devious things, but for a good cause. Bring the fans in on the joke. It would allow the brothers to beat the heels at their own game on occasion. Meanwhile Jey goes Ultimate Warrior route, cutting promos that make absolutely no sense and hitting insane spots. His character could become as whacked out as his moveset. I worry that drawing sharp contrasts between them would rob them of their ring synergy, but this would get them both big personalities.
The Exotic Express demonstrates that raves have changed very little during the past 25 years. It’s still mostly a bunch of well-off white kids having a laugh. Come on, even the bunny’s white. Working the Usos into the mix would add a more exotic element. Hey, have Naomi join too. America, we have only begun to party. Get the entire crew, Easter Bunny included, doing the haka. If Vince were willing to drop the PG nonsense, I’d say add women in nothing but body paint, but that’s probably a bridge too far. Come up with new catchphrases. For instance they’ve got to yell something before they come off the top rope – come up stuff in the comments section. I’ve got Electric Six on the brain at the moment so all I can come up with is “Danger! Danger!”
Like a lot of other talents on the roster, the Usos perhaps get a little less credit inside the company because they are pro wrestlers first and sports entertainers second. Why not call that out and turn it into its own gimmick? Maybe team up with Dolph Ziggler and a returning Daniel Bryan to form a faction. Come up with a graphic indicating that each one of their matches has been given the Wrestlers Union seal of approval. Your entertainment has been guaranteed. The t-shirts practically make themselves. Make it so the WU doesn’t do throwaway matches, that these guys go as hard in Tulsa as they do in Madison Square Garden. Shine a spotlight on some of the company’s best workers and build the entertainment around them having pride in the product. Just let us get in that ring and we’ll entertain you all … night … long! You get the idea.
The WWE’s #2 program has gone from stellar earlier this year to aimless in recent months. Right now it’s playing like the Raw hangover. Somebody ought to step in and make that show their own. Give every Smackdown an extra dose of Uso. Have them take ownership of it. Hell, have cousin The Rock show up and declare his show, Smackdown, is now in the hands of the Usii. Let them take part in every major feud in the WWE. Come Friday night, Jimmy and Jey will be sticking their noses in other people’s business. That keeps them prominent while other things are taking place with the tag belts. The problem the WWE has with its tag teams is they tend to disappear when they’re not vying for the belts. If the Usos become Smackdown’s hype men,
then they can stay evergreen until it’s their turn to make another run at the titles.
Brutality
Arguably, adding the haka entrance is what put the Usos on track to becoming tag champs. Just that little bit of Pacific islander culture helped to separate them from the pack. These guys have Wild Samoan bloodlines. Maybe they draw on that and demonstrate that they can get brutal when the situation calls for it. Have you ever seen a museum exhibit of Pacific islander war clubs? People from that region of the world put an inordinate amount of thought and time into figuring out how to crack open the human skull. Obviously Jimmy and Jey aren’t going to start acting like extras in a King Kong movie, but they can get a little more smashmouth, a little more savage. Put them up against opponents who force them to access the darkside in order to prevail. They don’t get corrupted per se, but they get hardened. Samoan fuckin’ underground gay porn hard!
When he returns from hernia surgery, Roman Reigns may be on a compressed timetable if the plan still is for him to headline WrestleMania. He’ll have a lot of bodies to go through and maybe he could use some help in fighting the assembled forces of darkness. Who better to help than his own cousins? In fact, they could pick up the fight for him before he returns. The Usos taking on Seth Rollins and Randy Orton in various tag and multi-man matches would be a great way to elevate them provided they get to win sometimes. It would be easy to start. Have the heels gloat about you don’t see Roman Reigns around because he’s soft and then the Usos come out, announcing that Roman is blood and no one runs down their family like that. When Reigns
returns then they can dish out some Anoa’i family values.
Fun as the Usii may be in the ring, they can be a little repetitive with their moveset. Some of that is they have to work a lot of short matches and those invariably need to involve their trademark high spots. Still, if Jimmy and Jey want to go down as one of the great tag teams in history, maybe they could pick up a few tricks from some of pro wrestling’s past tag team greats. It would be like the montage in every underdog movie where the hero learns an impossible amount of stuff in a small amount of time, except in this case it would be a completely reasonable amount of time. Have Bret and Anvil show then the Hart Attack. Have Arn and Tully show them the spike piledriver. Have Shawn and Marty show them the double diving fist drop. Have Ax and Smash show them the Demolition Decapitation. Side note: real nice seeing them whip out a Doomsday Device on Friday night. Nostalgia sells and the end result would be the Usos have now transformed themselves into the chosen ones of the tag division. Basically they become Kung Fu Pandas.
If I controlled the universe, this would be the near-term plan for the WWE tag team division. The optimal match for the Usos and Dust Brothers is a full-fledged TLC match. These four guys could send that match to the moon. On top of that, the WWE has struggled to stage main events at its “secondary” pay-per-views that deliver a sufficient wow factor. The 8-Ball has the solution. As proof that they so crazy, the Usos decide they want their championship rematch at TLC (I’m giving them a second shot because of the DQ on Friday), and not only that, it’s going to be the TLC main event. Why? Because no way, no how can any team beat them in a TLC match. And with that, I’d do three solid months of the Usos working table matches, ladder matches and chair matches to prepare for their TLC epic. I’d have them be the lead dog for selling that PPV. The Dust Brothers can do their thing against whatever makeshift tag teams the WWE can throw their way – Big Show and Mark Henry would suffice. Yet the Usos would always be lurking with plunder to remind them that TLC is coming and the Fatu boys are ready for mayhem. Then, instead of some intermediary WWE title clash headlining the card, we get a ***** gem with the Usos climbing back to the top of the tag division and everybody on the Internet and beyond proclaiming TLC is the PPV of the year. That’s TLC you can believe in.
I take requests.. The purpose of this column is to look forward. What could be? What should be? What is and what should never be? What would make more sense? 411 has plenty of columns that count down and rank things that happened in the past. This is not one of those columns. The Magic 8-Ball is here to gaze into the future. If there’s someone or something you think should be given the 8-Ball treatment, mention it in the comments section. I might pick it up for future weeks.
