WWE's Growing Jey Uso Problem

Jey Uso won the 2025 men's Royal Rumble match, cashed in his title opportunity at WrestleMania 41 and won the World Heavyweight Championship from Gunther in one of that show's most memorable moments.

As the summer kicks into high gear, though, he is at the center of a growing problem for WWE.

Uso is massively over with fans.

His popularity rivals that of Cody Rhodes, Randy Orton, Roman Reigns and Rhea Ripley as he receives reactions as loud, if not louder than all of those Superstars in arenas around the world.

Uso sells a boatload of merchandise, with "Yeet" T-shirts being staples of any WWE crowd and fans of all ages jumping at the opportunity to rock a pair of his trademark shades.

His entrance is an enormous part of the live experience at WWE events, with fans waiting for the moment to "Yeet" alongside their favorite wrestler, cameras catching the sea of bodies moving along with Uso as he makes his way to the squared circle.

As immensely over as he is, thanks as much to his role in the Bloodline saga as the merch sales and gimmicky entrance, there comes a time when WWE Creative must back that up with credibility-building booking. And on that front, Uso has been let down, significantly, and therein lies the root of the company's evolving issue.

Before his win in the Rumble and subsequent championship victory over Gunther on wrestling's grandest stage, Uso had gained the reputation of a wrestler who routinely lost his biggest matches. He had the unwavering support of the fans. Still, he could never get over the hump, dropping bouts to Gunther, Bron Breakker, Drew McIntyre, Damian Priest and others.

It is a trend that, despite the career-defining wins to start 2025, never really disappeared.

Even during his world heavyweight title reign, WWE Creative hesitated to put him over definitively. In fact, after capturing the title at WrestleMania, Uso netted only one clean victory during his 51 days with the title, a Saturday Night's Main Event win over Logan Paul.

Otherwise, his run was marred by disqualification wins or losses, and a Money in the Bank tag team win over Paul and John Cena that had as much to do with rebuilding Rhodes as the No. 1 contender to the latter's Undisputed WWE Championship as anything.

As soon as the opportunity arose to book a returning (and retiring) Goldberg in a title match, he dropped the belt back to Gunther, clean in the middle of the ring, and resumed his losing ways against Rhodes in Monday's main event.

While WWE is likely banking on Uso's popularity to sustain his star power, there does have to be creative buy-in that lasts beyond two months.

He needs to win matches, big ones, cleanly to sustain his credibility with the audience because, as much as some suggests that wins and losses do not matter in professional wrestling, there is only so much the marketing and merchandising machine can cover up before the audience realizes it is rooting for a lovable loser.

Especially when there is no clear direction for him moving forward.

Where does Uso go now that he has achieved the pinnacle of singles competition and lost it in short order? It does not appear WWE is invested in putting him back in that position, and another run with the intercontinental championship on Raw or the U.S. title on SmackDown would feel like a step down.

He does not appear to be in a position where he is going to get many, if any, wins against top headliners like Rhodes, Reigns, Cena or Seth Rollins. Even Gunther, against whom he is just 1-4, does not appear to be a winnable matchup for Uso at this point, at least in the eyes of this creative team.

While it is easy to dismiss his father, Rikishi's, criticisms of his son's booking due to the familial element, there is some legitimacy to those claims, including undermining him as champion and his prominence on PLE cards compared to established acts.

Those themes will continue to be at the root of WWE's Uso problem moving forward. He is too big a star to ignore, thanks to an unwavering connection with the audience. But without quality wins and sustained creative momentum, there is nowhere for him to go.

As long as the company is willing to book him as it has and believes the fans will still buy into him, even if he continuously fails to secure the win in his more important matches, that problem will permeate through the rest of the year and into the future.

Is Uso a star in 2025? Undeniably.

Are there any number of performers on the WWE roster who would give their right arm to be where he is, selling the merch and enjoying the television time that he has? Absolutely.

All of that does not fully reflect buy-in from the powers that be, though, and could threaten Uso's ability to be taken seriously as a legitimate main event talent in the long run.

That is something that should not even be a question considering how his year started, but suddenly is thanks to the subpar booking of his championship run and its immediate follow-up.