The Usos Talk WWE Saying They Looked Too Much Like Roman Reigns After Changing Their Gear
WWE Superstars The Usos recently appeared on The New Day: Feel The Power podcast. Among many other things, The Usos talked about their heel turn. According to Jey, when the colorful, high-flying tandem turned heel, they stopped painting their faces and began wearing black. WWE officials complained that the twins too closely resembled their black vested biological cousin, Roman Reigns.
"Yeah, use [there was resistance to Usos giving up the face paint]. Obviously, for the heel change, we needed to change everything, but they were saying when they had first seen us working in all black, it was like, 'you guys look too much like Roman. Don't look like Roman.' 'Man, who the hell else are we supposed to look like? We're in the same gene pool, uce.' Like, we fought to get that [face paint] off. They wanted us to keep it, but in my mind it wasn't going to work." Jey continued, "there was no way we could get away from that. Like, we were colorful, but then we had to get completely away from that. 'They can't tell who y'all are without the face paint.' You know how that is."
The Usos, who recently returned to WWE SmackDown to make the save for Reigns, talked about coming from The Samoan Dynasty. In particular, Jimmy noted that their famous family made it more difficult for them to find themselves as pro wrestlers.
"Man, I think it was because we were always Rikishi's boys or y'all just got in it, right? But I always knew they all had their own little schtick, right? 'Kishi was the dancing, Umaga was like the bad one, the killer, man. To me, one of my favorite ones was Tonga Kid, back in the day." Jimmy added, "they all had their own style, right? And that's why me and use [were] like, 'man, that's what we need.' But we always knew our style is easy. It's us. It's hip. It's cool. We can kick it with anybody. It's neutral. To me, we're just neutral to everybody."
When asked how the twins began painting their faces, Jimmy divulged that he drew on their faces with a permanent marker for a dark match and it caught on with the office.
"I just painted his face for a dark match with a Sharpie," Jimmy recalled. "Then, I painted mine. With a Sharpie. We had the dark match, painted his face, painted my face, had the dark match. The next week we came back, 'hey uce, did y'all do something different last week?' I was like, 'what? We didn't even work last week. What the hell are you talking about?' 'You didn't do [anything] different?' And then, uce said, 'he painted my face!' He's like, 'do it again. Vince wants to see it.'"
With respect to The USOs' war dance, apparently the brothers pitched it over a year before they got to do it as part of their entrance.
"We pitched it like a year prior, dog," Jimmy reiterated Jey's point. "And we completely forgot about pitching the war dance. Do you know what I'm saying? And then, Billy Kidman, out of nowhere, remember? 'Hey uce, you're about to do the dance because Vince wants to see what y'all are talking about.' And I was like, 'what the hell is he talking about? What dance is he talking about?' 'Didn't you pitch a dance or something?' 'Are you talking about a year ago?' 'Yeah, he wants to see that.'"
Listen to the show here or via the embedded player below. If you use any of the quotations that appear in this article, please credit The New Day: Feel The Power with an H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
width="100%">