FMKK

So that's what Maddox and Woods were both doing in that hotel room then. What does her having consensual sex before she was even with Del Rio have to do with anything?

https://twitter.com/davemeltzerWON/status/893546747183505408 People talk about the dumb questions Dave gets asked on Twitter etc. but he does himself no favours by making disingenuous responses to valid discussion points because they tend towards criticism of his favourite type of wrestling. Wrestlers making concerted attempts to tailor their matches to Dave and hardcore fan opinion is a phenomenon worth discussing imo.

Refined Westerner? We're ignorant pig-dogs compared to the sophisticated connoisseurs from the land of PURORESU~!

Hmmm

Still real to you damn it

I expect a citation of course

Everyone else is a stereotype but you man

Either Braun was begging sarcastically or Jeff (assuming he might be a source because he wasn't mentioned in the story) or whoever told the story has really overblown it.

Perfect, thanks. Might look for something with the Real Americans too because I remember they were a pretty fun TV tag team. Need to get a couple of heel matches in too. Probably the title switch vs American Alpha and the recent New Day match.

I feel like a retooled or babyface Bray could still have some value to the company though, while I think Ziggler is now of zero merit whatsoever

Discuss: Is Bray Wyatt a more played out act than Dolph Ziggler?

Demon Balor vs Bray Wyatt sounds like the 7th circle of wrestling hell to me

This Ambrose/Rollins thing has been pretty well built and the transition from the Miz and co to Sheamus/Cesaro has been well handled. Not everything is working but the booking on Raw is pretty well organised right now.

Yeah this Jordan thing seems DOA. He's just not a charismatic speaker. Miz was there to carry him but ended up outclassing him pretty badly

Just did a promo on Raw where Heyman said that Lesnar would "leave WWE" if he loses the title at Summerslam. Brock looked really slimmed down.

The triple threat match on Raw should be god damn incredible.

Might search out some of the Shield six-mans that the Usos were involved in to see if they could better this effort.

The Usos vs The Shield (Rollins/Reigns) - WWE Money in the Bank, 14th July 2013 This is the pre-show. I feel like this match is seen as a coming out party for the Usos in terms of being acknowledged as a team who can have high end matches. I'm also interested to see how Rollins and Reigns are as workers within their first year on the main roster with the context of their singles runs in mind. I'm rather low and very high on each respectively. With the Usos, the Shield, Cody and Goldust and the Real Americans, 2013 seems like a high point for WWE tag team wrestling. Mix in the likes of Bryan, Punk, Cena and Christian for the multitude of TV six-mans and it might be the best year ever for WWE tag team matches. Perhaps worth further investigation in the future. Somewhat clunky roll-up spots to start. The Usos aren't as over as they would be a year later in the Wyatt match I don't think. Cole's commentary literally sounds like he's phoning it in, though it might just be the quality of this upload. Crowd are chanting for RVD, who was returning on this show. Not much anticipation for this match clearly. The Usos dominate early with double team moves on Roman as JBL plays them up as the first proper team to have taken on The Shield. It's funny to hear Cole mention the Anoa'i family without acknowledging that the Usos and Reigns are actually related. Back from an ad break with the Usos still on top before a Rollins drop kick lets the Shield take over. Awkward botch in the corner with Roman and Jimmy (i think?) as this has been pretty nondescript so far. UNTIL JIMMY TAKES A FUCKING APRON BUMP ON HIS HEAD FROM A CLOTHESLINE! Now for the heat. Roman's punches are ok but nothing on what they are now. I think he's one of the best punchers in wrestling in 2017. Little bit of cheating with Rollins getting some kicks in from the corner but the crowd are too busy chanting RVD to boo. The Shield heat hasn't been much but there's a nice bit where Rollins gets blind tagged, thrown over the top and then is there to pull the other Uso off the apron to stop the hot tag. The commentary is good at playing up their teamwork. Back from an ad break to see an Uso hitting a huge dive on the Shield. Bit shit to miss out on the comeback. Nice near fall on a flying crossbody and the crowd is finally alive for the match. Rikishi corner spot and samoan drop for another near fall. Then there's a pretty big tower of doom spot that kills everyone. Those spots are always pretty damn contrived but the crowd pops big for it. Nice turning the tables moment as Reigns is pulled off the apron when Rollins needs the tag. He gets superkicked and splashed but Reigns breaks up the pin at the last second. Great nearfall and the crowd are well into the match now. The dreaded This Is Awesome breaks out. The finish is pretty neat as well. Rollins is lifted up for a top rope samoan drop but he sunset flips (with help from Reigns) to do the buckle bomb which is followed immediately by a Reigns spear to get the three. This really is a case of a match of two halves because this was super basic before the stretch run. The Uso shine at the start wasn't really up to much, though they had a couple of decent double team moves. The Shield heat was nothing special either as it basically consisted of punches and chokes. The transition with the apron bump was crazy shit though and Rollins pulling the man off the apron was well worked towards but really there wasn't much in terms of hope spots or interesting offence. The ad break cut out the hot tag, which is shitty, but I will say that the finishing run was excellent and really had the crowd rocking. They bought all of the nearfalls, the Usos were dynamic on offence, there were some big spots and the ending put over the Shield as a smart team. Probably worth three stars for the hot ending but not enough before that to go much higher. ***

I think that's where their heel run may stand them in good stead when evaluating them, because from memory I do get that feeling as well. I hope to discover some variations as I watch more. I think I'll do the match vs Rollins & Reigns from MITB 2013 next because that feels to me like their coming out party as a team who can have really good matches.

Ok so I had a little time before work so I watched the Superstars six-man tag. The Usos & Trent Barreta vs Heath Slater, Justin Gabriel and Tyson Kidd - WWE Superstars, 30th June 2011 Usos get the jobber entrance as this is pretty early in their WWE run. All the guys here worked well but man, Barreta, Gabriel and Kidd just look pretty generic. LITTLE GUIDO IS THE REF. And he actually tells Slater to GET OUTTA HERE at one point. Amazing. The guy commentating with Striker has a very annoying voice. This was a fun match with plenty of action throughout and some unexpected big spots. There's a nice racism spot early as Jimmy no-sells a headbutt due to his super Samoan noggin. He also dances a bit. The Usos bust out some nice offensive moves that they don't really do much anymore, including a sitout full nelson slam and a northern lights suplex. Barretta gets some shine, including a nice move where he springs off the second rope to elbow his opponent in the corner. The announcers hype that he has a rivalry with Tyson Kidd, who gets the heat on him. These two pair up nicely on a couple of occasions here. The heat segment is pretty by the numbers. Jey Uso brings some decent fire on the hot tag, but it's clear that they haven't got down their babyface shtick that would get them over, even though some of the signature spots are there. Their punches aren't as good as in the later match either. In one of the randomly big spots I mentioned earlier, Slater hits a powerslam from the second rope to take control back for the heel team. That looked impressive. Jey is a little more interesting to watch getting beaten on than Barreta, though it's pretty standard fair once again. The match breaks down as Jey knocks Slater and Gabriel out of the ring before making a hot tag. They seem to like that spot. Barreta and Kidd match up again and are quite good together. I'd like to see a C-show singles match between those two. Things are rolling along nicely until the other random big spot is brought out. Barreta superplex to Kidd to the floor, taking out everyone. The crowd, who had been enjoying the match rather than being invested up to this point, are on their feet. Gabriel breaks up a pin attempt back inside but he's pulled out and killed by the Usos double superkick. Tornado DDT to Kidd before a tag and an Uso splash finishes this one off. This was a great fun ten minute sprint. Everyone was bringing some nice, crisp offence and moving through the gears quickly without short-selling the impact of the moves. The one downside was that the heat segments really weren't much, but they didn't have loads of time so I can forgive that. In terms of the Usos, they were energetic throughout but didn't hit the highs of their later performances. The crowd weren't super into them as they didn't do the Use-OH! chant before the Rikishi corner splash etc. but they played their part in an entertaining bout. Need to catch more of this C-show shit. ***1/4 (Edited the rating up a little after some thought)

Thanks, I'd love to check out some of that random earlier stuff once I get through a couple of the more obvious contenders for their top matches. They must have a ton of relatively forgotten good TV matches!

The Usos vs The Wyatt Family - 2/3 Falls - WWE Battleground, 20th July 2014 Starting off with this one simply because it's up in full on the WWE Youtube channel, but I remember it being pretty well regarded at the time. Jey Uso kicks off with a pretty huge slap across Rowan's face. I like when babyfaces bring the fight to monsters.Of course the Wyatts immediately beat him down and get the heat. Crowds doing the Us-Oh! chant without prompt shows that these guys were pretty damn over during this run. The Wyatts get some chants from the crowd too. Harper does some nice mean heel moves when in control, including lots of grabbing and raking of the face. He also hits a really nasty boot on Jimmy to cut off a hot tag run immediately. And the Wyatts take the first fall in 4 minutes! The story so far has been the Wyatts using their power and physicality to ground the high-flyers, with both Usos bumping nicely. The commentary does well to build up how big the odds are against the babyface champions. Rowan's offence isn't quite so impressive looking as Harper's but the crowd are right into Jimmy Uso trying to escape from a very 80s-monster-looking rest hold. This isn't often mentioned but the Usos have some pretty sweet punches. Having an impactful working punch is so vital to mix in with selling to create hope spots and Jimmy is firing some great ones here to go with his rag-dolling. Quick hot tag to Jey leads to an immediate roll-up to tie up the match at 1-1. Not sure how I feel about them blasting through two falls in under ten minutes, but that's a standard trope with this stipulation. Match goes straight back to a Wyatt heat section as the Usos have had basically no shine at all so far. Jey gets beaten down further, with the Wyatts mixing in a nice blend of power moves and gritty wearing down stuff. The crowd explodes as Jey avoids a couple of charges to send both Wyatts out of the ring. They're dying for a proper hot tag after basically two teases. Crowd is electric for the tag as Jimmy hits a dive on Harper, then a dive on Rowan and then runs the barricade to take down Harper again. Not quite as smooth as Jeff Hardy on the spot but fun all the same. Great nearfall on a top rope splash on Harper. Jimmy is all action since getting the hot tag but Harper busts out a tope of his own to bring out the dreaded This Is Awesome chant. Another couple of excellent near-falls of a super kick-roll up combo for the Usos and then a powerbomb by Harper. Then Rowan of all people MISSES A TOP ROPE SPLASH, before kicking out of the Uso splash from Jey, The crowd is eating up these big spots. Another wild spot as Rowan suplexes both Usos from the top. They take it maybe a step far with Harper no-selling a superkick to hit the discus lariat. Those no-sell spots are hit-and-miss with me. The Usos up the ante by taking out both Wyatts with double-team superkicks and a double splash is enough to finally finish Harper and take the match 2-1 at 18:50. This match was tremendous fun. I was unsure about the structuring in that they basically followed the standard tag formula and got the two falls out of the way during the heel heat. Perhaps with more time they could've done more with those falls and had more of an ebb and flow to the match. The Usos' first fall was essentially a hope spot in the midst of an extended heel heat section. However, what they did do was massively entertaining. The Usos are great at combining exhausted selling with fired-up strikes to give a real sense of desperation and fight to their comebacks. The Wyatts were good in the beat-downs too, especially Harper. Their moves weren't always the most polished but looked nasty throughout, which fits the characters. The structure of the match, although I have questioned it, really did get the crowd into the finishing sequence massively and the all-action performances combined with five or six good nearfalls were red hot over. The crowd continued to chant for the Usos as well so the match was over on a deeper level than just being a spotfest. I didn't like the Harper no-sell spot that much and the finish was maybe slightly awkward to set up but this was a high-end WWE tag match that the crowd were super into. ****1/4

There are only so many guys on the roster. Surely they must have a playlist with all music available at their fingertips the way we do on a computer or phone. Yeah but I'm sure it's all queued up because they know who's supposed to win. The ending was fucked up in a lot of ways but I don't think Styles was supposed to win. Really, I think the biggest fuck up on that ending was how they shot it. They picked the absolute worst angle to show. I could probably pull up Owens' music on Spotify in about ten seconds so it's not beyond the realm of possibility that Kevin Dunn could do the same. I still think it was a screw-up at they did the switch on Smackdown just to correct the error. Hopefully they blow the feud off soon though because it hasn't sparked at all and I's much rather see AJ doing the open challenge gimmick and working guys like Rusev.

Following their match with The New Day on the WWE Battleground PPV, there was a talking point going around Twitter that The Usos were one of the top five WWE tag teams of all time. They have certainly been in consistently good television matches during their WWE run and have a handful of really high-end PPV title matches under their belt too. As a babyface team, they got really hot in 2013 feuding with The Wyatts and The Shield and were a consistent factor at the top end of the tag division throughout the next couple of years. Jey's injury in 2015 allowed them a chance to rest their act but, although they remained consistent in-ring, there was a sense that their babyface routine had somewhat staled. But a switch to Smackdown after the brand split as well as a heel turn has really refreshed the team and, although the tag division on the blue side is quite weak, they've been once again consistently entertaining in-ring and as characters. In terms of work, they're probably best known for their dynamic matches and for putting together exciting finishing sequences on a consistent basis. I'm going to use this thread to review matches from throughout their run to assess their case as an all-time top WWE tag team. Contributions in the form of reviews, match suggestions or comments would be greatly appreciated.

The most believable reason is that the Battleground finish was just a fuck up that they had to reverse. Anyhow, if they wmd up going through with the US Open Challenge with AJ as champ I'll happily forgive them for this mess.