The Roman Reigns Era Suddenly in Grave Danger With The Usos Betraying Bloodline

WWE weaved another epic chapter in the all-timer of a story Saturday as The Usos finally freed themselves of The Bloodline, with Jimmy Uso's betrayal marking the end of an era.

The main event to Night of Champions from Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, was never going to be a traditional match. Reigns and Solo Sikoa weren't going to rip the undisputed WWE tag team titles from Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn, not with so much strife between family on the challengers' side of the ring.

But the main question was how.

Jimmy, needled and barbed by Reigns for weeks and distraught with his brother's kowtowing and downright abuse at the hands of his cousin, broke he and his brother free:

The line uttered by Jimmy before the no-take-backs second kick says it all: "I'm doing what you should've done a long time ago. I got you."

It was the only proper way for the storyline to progress here and about as organic as it gets—hence the careful buildup of tension for weeks.

Some might bemoan this as a retread of Jey's plot around WrestleMania season and throw out accusations of it being an artificial extension of things until WWE hits bigger events like SummerSlam, if not the next 'Mania.

But Jimmy's character growth was inevitable in this tale. Jey was the one emotionally abused near the start of this saga, manipulated, gaslit and had allegiances torn before reverting and trying to make things right, best as he can for his brother.

That's never been Jimmy.

Jimmy, at least in this tale, has had this tension over the treatment of his brother festering for a while. Tack on losing the unified titles at WrestleMania 39 and Reigns directly aiming at him since, to the point of even replacing The Usos in tag title matches personally? It was never going to fly.

He's always had the more alpha-styled personality of the two brothers. He is, after all, the only Bloodline member with a t-shirt for sale on WWE's shop with the slogan ''Nobody's B---h'.'

Where things go from here is downright enthralling. Reigns will go after Jimmy, who won't back down. Odds are Jey fully swings to one side, if he hasn't already. Reigns himself looked devastated as the show faded to black, too, not so much over Zayn's taunting with the tag belts, but through fully understanding he just lost two members.

One might argue it feels better than when Zayn betrayed The Bloodline, too. Sounds like blasphemy at first pass, but this has always been a family-centric story first and foremost. Jimmy ripping things apart and Jey potentially finishing them would be all sorts of poetic.

In the grander scheme, this is yet another example of why WWE got it right when Reigns took down Cody Rhodes at 'Mania. There's zero sense in cutting short the greatest pro wrestling story of all time and putting moments like this at risk. He can't throw it in the Usos' faces that he's carrying all the weight of The Bloodline if he had lost at The Show of Shows too—it was the right call then and it remains so now.

How good was Saturday? Zayn, Owens and even Paul Heyman—maybe the greatest of all time on the mic and one of the best personalities ever—were sideshows.

The draw has always been about The Bloodline, little else.

Even if WWE reverts in nine months or so and injects an outsider like Rhodes back into this, The Usos have just ascended another plane, reaching New Day levels of babyface-over as a result of this storytelling progression.

Still, we're a long ways out from a conclusion. A long ways from Jey getting another shot, Sikoa's possible betrayal, etc. The starting point is Money in the Bank on July 1, when it will likely be a tag match between the two parties.

Either way, fans are firmly in the "Jimmy" season of this epic long-running story after the "Sami" and "Jey" arcs. Each start, buildup and finish has a way of pulling even the most over-it fans back.

Saturday is the perfect example as to why. Everything felt by-the-books until it wasn't, a major swerve that again makes any Bloodline-related programming captivating.

That's the difference now. Bloodline events aren't just wrestling matches. They're epics. Seth Rollins-AJ Styles was a good match, but it couldn't compare. Rhodes-Brock Lesnar's main story was unexplained and the main in-ring story was an arm. It just doesn't compare. Truly, The Bloodline has become sports entertainment.

And it sure feels like Jimmy just super-kicked the snowball down the mountain.

The fall of Reigns wasn't going to happen quickly, nor was it going to be predictable. Jimmy, a former bystander, will finally play a pivotal role after forging one of the most iconic moments in this epic, which is another example of pro wrestling storytelling at its best.