Professional wrestling and sports entertainment fans frequently want to see surprises in the business. A major one went down at the 2025 Royal Rumble, where Jey Uso was the final man standing in the ring, punching his ticket to the main event of WrestleMania 41. Since that moment there’s been a loud response across the Internet, creating an interesting discourse about Jey and the overall main event picture.
Jey Uso’s “Main Event” nickname seems to be coming true. By shoving John Cena in the back, he picked up the biggest win to date in his nearly 17-year career. He’s going to WrestleMania and by the looks of it, he is planning on challenging GUNTHER for the WWE World Heavyweight Championship.
It’s another huge moment in Jey’s career which has exploded since the beginning of The Tribal Chief and Bloodline angles. The story centered around Roman Reigns’s dominance has helped build several names, and Jey Uso was the first. Jey stretched his wings in a way that caused many to begin seeing him as a huge star who can step out of the tag team division in a way that few have before. Listen to and look at the reaction Jey gets anytime he’s shown on screen or during his ring entrances. The reactions are there. Jey is reportedly one of the biggest merch movers in the company, showing that the financial benefit of a main event push is also there.
Jey Uso winning the Royal Rumble was certainly quite a shocker. But not all the reactions have been positive. WWE has a popular YouTube channel where it frequently posts content of its most popular stars. The video of Jey Uso winning the rumble has 801,862 views as of this writing. Of that total, 42,129 have downvoted or disliked the video. That’s a huge number when thinking about the overall perception of WWE content. Will WWE change its main event plans due to that immediate reaction – absolutely not. This is completely different than the push for Cody Rhodes to “Finish the Story” at WrestleMania 40. But it is a reaction that is worth further discussion.
For the last year, there’s been an online back-and-forth about Uso’s viability as a main event performer. There are those who point to his overall reaction as more than enough reason he should get his moment in the spotlight. On the other hand, there’s a feeling that he’s been frequently booked as a one-dimensional performer, nothing more than superkicks, a top-rope splash and the catchphrase “Yeet.”
Both of those points are valid in the discussion, but at the same time they both point to the factors that WWE values most. Sports entertainment always reigns supreme in WWE. It’s the reason celebrities get so much screen time and random moments in the Royal Rumble. It’s the reason some performers who may not be great in the ring get more opportunity and find more success than those who many would consider among the best wrestlers in the world. Jey Uso is a major superstar in the eyes of WWE due to the reaction he receives and the revenue he drives as a merchandise mover. That rarely correlates to being the best wrestler or character on the roster.
For Jey Uso, this will be a “sink or swim” moment. Can he rise to the moment and get these detractors on his side heading into WrestleMania 41, or will this be a one-time moment that he doesn’t get to capitalize on for long-term success? There’s a little more than two months for he and WWE to figure it out, because this is a company that tends to stick to its guns rather than make changes based on fan reaction. Come April 7, everyone will know if it is “Yeet,” or “No Yeet.”