WWE: Ranking The Usos’ Top 10 Matches of All-Time
By Joe Hulbert
4. The Usos vs. New Day (Battleground 2017)
Though not the first match of their 2017 rivalry, this Battleground beauty between The Usos and New Day stands out as a key moment in both teams’ careers. A month prior they’d fought to a count-out finish and a memorable rap battle had come in-between but it was now time to take the physicality up a notch and that’s exactly what happened here. To set the tone, Kofi jumped Jey early in a psychological touch that quickly established the match’s urgency and importance.
No count-out finish would halt New Day this time and that showed in their immediate intent. That wild New Day start only made the cut-off spot more impactful as The Usos battered Woods before going into their control segment. The heat portion of a tag match is obviously pivotal and that’s what made this particular match so outstanding in my mind. Though it wasn’t overly long or drawn-out, The Usos beat Woods up with methodical violence, trash talking along the way. They cheated too and still did so with enough venom to maintain their vibe as tough, aggressive champions.
This is obviously The Usos’ list but it would be remiss of me to ignore Woods’ showing here. He sold fabulously and fought with a fire that would soon make this rivalry famous. Desperate head-butts earned him some space and he then brought Kingston in for the hot tag. However, The Usos caught his ‘trust fall’ and slammed him into the floor before catching Woods with a pair of uppercuts. Eventually legal again, Xavier rallied but his long distance elbow drop was halted by a brutal superkick to the face.
The story here had very much been that The Usos were in the form of their life and consistently a step ahead without being able to ever actually secure the win. This led to a dramatic Boston Crab false finish in which Woods refused to tap, selling his heart out all the same. In fact, his sell here was similar to Jey’s in that aforementioned Survivor Series bout that came just a few months later. Perhaps that’s indicative of the way these two teams impacted each other, even when they had briefly moved onto other foes.
Woods soon made the tag again nonetheless and more intense false finishes followed until The Usos’ ambitious double splash attempt cost them. New Day capitalised and in the perfect finish, Woods won with his Elbow Drop of doom. A quite extraordinary match maximised by the duelling emotion shown after the finish. Best of all, this was just the start.