WWE has revealed the date for the Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens vs. The Usos Undisputed WWE Tag Team Championship rematch.
As announced by Paul Heyman prior to the main event on Friday’s SmackDown episode, Zayn & Owens will defend the Undisputed Tag titles against The Usos on the Friday, April 28 WWE SmackDown show, the same night that the 2023 WWE Draft will begin.
Zayn & Owens defeated The Usos on night one of WrestleMania 39 to capture the Undisputed Tag Team titles. The Usos held the SmackDown Tag Team titles for 622 days, and unified those belts with the Raw Tag Team titles in May 2022. The Usos Undisputed reign lasted a total of 316 days.
The rematch will be the first title defense for Zayn & Owens since winning the Undisputed Tag titles.
The storyline between Zayn & Owens and The Bloodline continued on Friday’s SmackDown show, with Matt Riddle further cementing his alliance with Zayn & Owens. Riddle faced The Bloodline’s Solo Sikoa in the main event of Friday’s show in a losing effort.
Two title matches are set for next week’s SmackDown.
Xavier Woods will get a shot at Gunther’s Intercontinental title. After he defeated LA Knight on Friday’s SmackDown, Woods confronted Gunther backstage by playing his trombone in front of Imperium. The two eventually agreed to a title match for next week’s show.
Liv Morgan and Raquel Gonzalez will have their first WWE Women’s Tag Team title defense on next week’s SmackDown when they take on Sonya Deville and Chelsea Green. Morgan and Gonzalez were celebrating their title victory when Green and Deville came out, laying claim to a future title match.
A third match will see The Viking Raiders take on Strowman and Ricochet. Strowman and Ricochet were walking backstage when they were jumped by the Raiders. The Vikings used a steel beam to wipe out Strowman, then took out Ricochet with a double powerbomb through a table.
Here is what has been announced so far for next week’s SmackDown:
WWE Women’s Tag Team titles: Liv Morgan & Raquel Gonzalez (c) vs. Sonya Deville and Chelsea Green
WWE Intercontinental title: Gunther (c) vs. Xavier Woods
The Viking Raiders vs. Braun Strowman and Ricochet
Welcome to another Friday night edition of Speak Now Pro Wrestling.
On tonight’s show, the focus is Friday’s WrestleMania fallout edition of WWE SmackDown that saw the announcement of the WWE Draft returning, a main event of Sami Zayn vs. Jey Uso, and plenty more.
WWE has made a pair of announcements for SmackDown’s WrestleMania 39 fallout episode.
After their respective title wins at WrestleMania, Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn and Rhea Ripley will make appearances on SmackDown this Friday night. Owens & Zayn won the Undisputed WWE Tag Team titles at WrestleMania, while Ripley was crowned the new SmackDown Women’s Champion.
Owens & Zayn defeated The Usos in the main event of WrestleMania 39 night one to win the Undisputed WWE Tag Team titles. Owens & Zayn then issued an open challenge on Monday’s Raw, defeating The Street Profits in a non-title match.
Ripley became SmackDown Women’s Champion by pinning Charlotte Flair at WrestleMania 39 night one. On Raw last night, Ripley confronted Raw Women’s Champion Bianca Belair. Ripley said Belair is lucky that Ripley decided to challenge Charlotte instead of her at WrestleMania. Ripley promised that she and Belair will get back to feuding at some point.
Friday’s SmackDown is taking place at the Moda Center in Portland, Oregon.
I am back with a Sunday edition of Wrestling Observer Live, once again joined by Rich Stambolian of Mat Men to discuss the best from Saturday’s WWE WrestleMania 39 lineup and provide a look ahead to tonight’s action.
We talk about the overall presentation and how it’s no longer just a pro wrestling show but resembles an award show instead.
We run through the entire night one card including thoughts on Rhea Ripley vs. Charlotte Flair being our match of the night, the culmination of this stage of The Bloodline and Mysterio family storylines, and Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn getting their flowers.
We take look at tonight’s card and what we are most looking forward to.
Plus we talk Vince McMahon being on headset, Triple H’s comments from the press conference, and more.
Sami Zayn says he didn’t achieve his dream at WrestleMania 39 only because he never dared to dream something so big.
Zayn and Kevin Owens spoke with Ariel Helwani following their victory over the Usos on Saturday night. Helwani asked the longtime friends to put into words what they are feeling about their emotional performance on the show.
Zayn said:
It’s too complex to summarize with one emotion because there’s like 15 emotions all jostling at the same time. But for me, if I had to sum it up, it would just be pride in getting here with him and gratitude for being able to get here with him.
Owens responded:
I haven’t found the words and it’s very hard to put into words but I feel like saying that sums up pretty well how we feel and I think people can relate. When the three count happened, the wave of emotion that hit me, I didn’t expect it. It’s crazy because I tried to picture it, I’ve pictured this moment hundreds of times.
Zayn interjected:
Actually, I never did. I never pictured it being in the main event of WrestleMania. So, it actually exceeded our dreams if that’s even possible.
Zayn continued:
I mean, we dreamed of when we first got to Ring of Honor – the first time we went we were like, ‘oh man, these guys are really good but this is where we have to be and we need to win those tag team titles.’ So, to go from that to this is wild, it’s just wild.
Owens also reflected on all of his accomplishments in recent years.
I think tonight was the epitome of the moments that’ll in my life, in my career, when I look back on will leave me speechless.
Zayn said:
Every year in my career I said, ‘well, this is as good as it gets’ and somehow, like, here we are right now. I don’t know how it keeps getting better but this is amazing.
Helwani asked Zayn if the victory at WrestleMania takes away any of the pain he might feel over having lost to Roman Reigns in Montreal at the Elimination Chamber.
Zayn said:
Absolutely and that’s one of the things that is hard to do sometimes in the moment, is just look at things on a longer timeline. I try to look at life in general that way but things like that will get you every now and again, like, man so close but not quite, as was the case in Montreal.
But if I had just waited six weeks, I’d be like, well, this is on the other side of it. So, for sure it softens that blow even though that’s ultimately an incredibly proud and amazing evening in my life and in my career. But certainly whatever little pain was there is alleviated by this moment, for sure.
I feel very lucky, also, because that was like a WrestleMania to me and now I got WrestleMania again, a different version with a happier ending with my bro. Lucky, just very, very lucky.
Zayn and Owens have now won tag team titles in three different promotions. They are two-time PWG tag champions, one-time ROH tag champions, and the current WWE tag champions. Their rivalry against each other in 2010 was also voted Feud of the Year in the Wrestling Observer Newsletter Awards.
The first night of WWE WrestleMania 39 was an excellent show — the first WrestleMania in a long time where most matches delivered and even the worst matches were merely fine.
The top two matches on the card were excellent.
Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens, in storybook fashion, defeated The Usos to win the undisputed WWE Tag Team titles for the first time. It was a dramatic match filled with excellent near falls towards the end and the crowd ended up being hot for just about everything. And when Zayn and Owens won, the people loved it. A WrestleMania ending on a happy note — who would have thunk it?
It is hard to speculate what happens now as we still have another half of the show to go on Sunday. I think back to a promo not too long ago where Cody Rhodes predicted that The Usos, Solo Sikoa, and others would eventually turn on him, causing his downfall. I wonder if the first show is due to drop on Sunday if Roman Reigns loses.
Charlotte and Rhea Ripley, who co-main evented, worked as if they were, in fact, in the main event.
I feel like while the main event had dramatic elements that really added to it, this match was an excellent back-and-forth workrate-type match that delivered in spades. This was the best Ripley match ever and I can’t think of too many Charlotte matches that were this good either. Rhea winning was the right choice and she should have the title for a long time to come.
Elsewhere on the card:
John Cena and Austin Theory had a very basic by the numbers match. Nothing bad, nothing good — this was a match that existed. I’m struggling to figure out what the deal with Theory is because this rebranding really isn’t working and he just doesn’t stand out. They want him to be something, but there’s something missing. You can tell me 10,000 times he’s a star but none of that will be true until he finds it.
The tag team showcase was as advertised: a showcase for four teams that did all sorts of cool stuff. Probably the craziest move of the night was Chad Gable hitting Braun Strowman with a Chaos Theory suplex. Yes, you weren’t dreaming, that happened. This a match where they just let the four teams stand out and it exceeded expectations.
Dominik and Rey Mysterio had a really good match. I think what worked best here were the dramatic elements. When Rey SPANKED HIS SON with a belt, the people absolutely loved it. People hated it when he threw the drink at his sister, same when his mother slapped him after he insulted her. It is fascinating to see just how well Dominik adapted to being what he is now. He knows exactly what he needs to do and is very smart about it, and turning heel was the best thing for his career.
Seth Rollins vs. Logan Paul was good, but not great. The Reigns match in Saudi Arabia was better. More than anything else in this match, however, I’ll probably remember KSI getting put through that table by Paul.
Trish Stratus, Becky, and Lita vs. Damage CTRL was fine. There were some cool spots, like when Stratus took Dakota Kai with her feet and threw her off the turnbuckle onto her partners below. But, this was just merely fine in a sea of really good matches. I do wonder what the program is for Becky Lynch next. There had been rumors of a Trish Stratus heel turn, but they did not happen here;
I don’t remember anything about Pat McAfee and The Miz match except for that I hated this was put on prior to the main event as I just wanted to see the damn main event. Not very good filler.
Stay tuned to the second part of this WrestleMania review Monday morning where we’ll finally see if Cody Rhodes can defeat Roman Reigns. And don’t forget Brock Lesnar vs. Omos. I can’t wait.
Sami Zayn came out of WrestleMania Saturday looking like a star.
Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer discussed Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens’ win at WrestleMania 39 Saturday night. Alvarez told a story about how he was once in a car with Zayn back around 2006 and he looked like he could barely move.
“He looked like he was moving close to retirement,” Alvarez said.
Alvarez pointed out that even back then, however, whenever people talked about the then El Generico, they always put him over as someone that stole the show.
“That was the reputation he had. Every Generico match is always the best match on the show,” Alvarez said.
Metlzer said that Zayn, who with Owens won the Undisputed Tag Team titles, was the star of the show at WrestleMania Saturday.
“He was the real main eventer, the key to everything,” he said.
He also thought that it wasn’t the end between Zayn/Owens and The Usos, and it would be interesting to see where it goes from here.
Wrestling Observer Radio with Bryan Alvarez and Dave Meltzer is back with tons to talk about including full and in-depth live and TV coverage of a fantastic night one of WWE WrestleMania, including the main event where Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens won the WWE Tag Team titles, Rhea Ripley winning the SmackDown Women’s title, and NXT Stand & Deliver with new champions crowned. They also hit on the unfortunate Gisele Shaw and Rick Steiner situation.
For the first time since July 2021, The Usos are no longer tag team champions.
In the main event of WrestleMania 39 night one, Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn defeated The Usos to win the Undisputed WWE Tag Team titles. The victory marks the start of Owens & Zayn’s first tag team title reign in WWE.
Zayn pinned Jey Uso after three straight Helluva Kicks while Owens took out Jimmy Uso with a stunner.
There was a near fall during the match where Zayn became the first person to ever kick out of The Usos’ 1D. Owens also kicked out after being given stereo top rope splashes by The Usos.
With WrestleMania being held in Los Angeles, Owens and Zayn wore gear paying tribute to their time in LA indie promotion PWG. The tribute included both Owens and Zayn having the PWG logo on their gear.
The Usos reign as champions lasted nearly two years after winning the SmackDown Tag Team titles at Money in the Bank 2021. They later became undisputed champions when they won the Raw Tag Team titles in May 2022.
Owens & Zayn vs. The Usos was the first-ever tag team title match to headline WrestleMania.
Night one of WrestleMania ended with Michael Cole questioning if The Bloodline is crumbling before our eyes. Roman Reigns is defending the Undisputed WWE Universal Championship against Cody Rhodes at WrestleMania 39 night two on Sunday.
This will be the first tag team match to go on last at the event since Hulk Hogan & Mr. T vs. Roddy Piper & Paul Orndorff at WrestleMania I and the first tag title match ever to headline a WrestleMania. Sami Zayn spoke about the significance of the match headlining in an interview with Ariel Helwani earlier this week.
It is insane because if you think about it, If we do go on last, which again remains to be seen, it would be the first time since WrestleMania I. And it would be the first tag team title match of all time. So, that’s something.
Meltzer addressed reasons why Owens & Zayn vs. The Usos should headline the show on Saturday’s edition of Wrestling Observer Radio.
Meltzer said
I think it’s the way to end the show, Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn go over in Los Angeles, same city. I think they are going to pull out a lot of great stuff. I’ve seen Sami Zayn & Kevin Owens in matches on far smaller platforms pull out some incredible stuff and this is the biggest match of their lives. And quite frankly, the biggest match of The Usos lives too. So, I expect a performance commensurate with the biggest match of four people’s lives who are all very good.
WWE WrestleMania 39 Night one lineup (Saturday, April 1) —
Undisputed WWE Tag Team Champions The Usos defend against Kevin Owens & Sami Zayn
SmackDown Women’s Champion Charlotte Flair defends against Rhea Ripley
Becky Lynch, Lita & Trish Stratus vs. Damage CTRL (Bayley, Dakota Kai & IYO SKY)
Seth Rollins vs. Logan Paul
Rey Mysterio vs. Dominik Mysterio
WrestleMania Showcase match: Braun Strowman & Ricochet vs. The Street Profits vs. Chad Gable & Otis vs. The Viking Raiders
United States Champion Austin Theory defends against John Cena
An eight-man tag team match has been made official for Raw’s WrestleMania 39 go-home show.
The Street Profits will team up with Ricochet & Braun Strowman as they face Chad Gable, Otis & The Viking Raiders on Raw this Monday night. It’s a preview of the men’s Showcase match that will be taking place at WrestleMania 39.
The men’s WrestleMania Showcase four-way tag match will be The Street Profits vs. Ricochet & Strowman vs. Gable & Otis vs. The Viking Raiders. There will also be a women’s Showcase match at WrestleMania 39 involving Liv Morgan & Raquel Rodriguez, Natalya & Shotzi, Ronda Rousey & Shayna Baszler, and one more team that has yet to be announced.
Though they’ll be teaming together on Raw, The Street Profits and Ricochet & Strowman got into a backstage confrontation on SmackDown last night.
Monday’s Raw is taking place at the Footprint Center in Phoenix, Arizona. The updated card for the episode is listed below:
Cody Rhodes vs. Solo Sikoa
WrestleMania weigh-in with Brock Lesnar and Omos
Miz TV with Becky Lynch, Lita, and Trish Stratus
The Street Profits, Braun Strowman & Ricochet vs. Chad Gable, Otis & The Viking Raiders
A segment with the reunited Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn has been added to the lineup for tonight’s SmackDown.
WWE has announced that Zayn will join Owens for a special edition of the KO Show on SmackDown tonight. The segment comes one week after Owens and Zayn’s reunion.
After weeks of refusing to work with Zayn to dismantle The Bloodline, Owens saved Zayn from a two-on-one beatdown by The Usos last Friday. The show ended with Owens and Zayn hugging in the ring.
It was confirmed on Raw this Monday that Owens & Zayn will challenge The Usos for the Undisputed WWE Tag Team titles at WrestleMania 39.
WWE has also announced a contract signing segment for tonight’s SmackDown. Intercontinental Champion Gunther, Drew McIntyre, and Sheamus will make their triple threat title match official for WrestleMania.
The MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas is hosting SmackDown tonight. The updated card for the show is listed below:
Cody Rhodes vs. Ludwig Kaiser
Dominik Mysterio confronts the Mysterio family
Rey Mysterio vs. LA Knight
KO Show with Sami Zayn
Contract signing for Gunther, Drew McIntyre, and Sheamus’ Intercontinental title match at WrestleMania 39
The Undisputed Tag Team title match is officially a go for WrestleMania 39.
Monday’s Raw had Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn come out to officially challenge The Usos for WrestleMania next month in Los Angeles. Jimmy Uso initially rejected their challenge. However, Jey said that it could give them the opportunity to finally take care of Zayn and Owens. The two teams ended up getting into a brawl that ended once footage was shown of Roman Reigns entering the arena.
Zayn has been targeted by The Bloodline ever since he turned on them at the Royal Rumble. In the weeks that followed, Jey Uso appeared conflicted as to whether or not he should leave The Bloodline. However, he made his intentions clear earlier this month when he laid out Zayn, realigning with his brother and The Bloodline.
Since turning on The Bloodline, Zayn has attempted to join forces with former friend Kevin Owens, who repeatedly rejected Zayn’s offer until last Friday’s SmackDown, when they joined forces to ward off an attack by The Bloodline.
WWE WrestleMania 39, Saturday, April 1 & Sunday, April 2, 8 p.m. Eastern time on Peacock & WWE Network —
Undisputed WWE Universal Championship: Roman Reigns defends against Cody Rhodes
SmackDown Women’s Championship: Charlotte Flair defends against Rhea Ripley
Raw Women’s Championship: Bianca Belair defends against Asuka
United States Championship: Austin Theory defends against John Cena
Filthy Four Daily with “Filthy” Tom Lawlor and I returns with a lot on our minds.
We talk an awesome edition of WWE SmackDown with a home run angle involving Sami Zayn and Kevin Owens
We recap New Japan Strong with Okada vs. Tanahashi from Battle in the Valley
And, of course, this is the go-home show for our battle on Saturday, March 25th in Crown Point, Indiana, for Black Label Pro’s Observe This, Brother when Tom & I complete our quest for the BLP Tag Team titles. If you can’t attend in person, watch live on FITE+ with a subscription.
