The WWE SmackDown Live tag team division has been one of the best things to watch in WWE over the last year, and the contentious feud between the SmackDown Tag Team Champions, the Usos, and the team of Chad Gable and Shelton Benjamin has been no exception. There’s been plenty of controversy between these two teams over the last couple of months, and that carried over into an intense two-out-of-three falls match at the 2018 Royal Rumble.
WWE SmackDown tag team championship retained on two straight falls
Chad Gable said there wouldn’t be a third fall against the Usos — and unfortunately for him and Shelton Benjamin, he was right.
The match started with the Usos trying to assert their dominance of the tag division on the blue brand, but some smart wrestling from Gable and Benjamin kept the challengers on top of the momentum:
But after Jimmy Uso was wiped out on the outside of the ring, his twin brother Jey went to work, wiping out Benjamin with a dive through the ropes, then hitting Gable with a flying plancha over the top rope in front of the announce tables. It looked like Jey was about to win the first fall, but a well-timed knee from Benjamin took him down hard and tilted the momentum back into the challengers’ favor.
That wouldn’t hold for long, however — after hitting both a combination finisher and Benjamin hitting his old Paydirt trademark move on Jey Uso, the champions still hung in on the first fall, and after Chad Gable’s attempt at a rollup was countered, he was on the receiving end of four Superkicks to give the first fall to the Usos.
From there, it looked like Gable and Benjamin were set to take control. Benjamin jumped Jimmy Uso right after the bell rang for the first fall, and after Jey was cleared out of the ring, Jimmy was dropped hard into the mat outside the ring. Jey was left wobbly and all alone — but he still called Gable on, and one shock rollup later, the Usos had retained their titles in a clean sweep of two falls in a row.
It was an emphatic win for the Usos, as Gable and Benjamin had seemed to have their number of late. More than that, though, such a thorough defeat raises a lot of questions about what’s next for the challengers — they had a strong showing, but to not even win a single fall in the match doesn’t do them any favors. It’s also something of a shallow field in the tag division on SmackDown right now, so who the next team up to challenge the Usos will be is anyone’s guess.
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