The Secret WWE History Of The Bloodline
Umaga burst onto the scene the night after WrestleMania 22 by battering Ric Flair on behalf of manager Armando Alejandro Estrada, and WWE loved his brutality so much that they went route one on his push. The character might have initially looked and felt out of date but fans back winners and that's what Umaga did week after week after week during his first year. Immune to over-exposure for his initial 12 months, he was a scary and unstoppable force whose aura was only enhanced by each win. Shrewdly kept away from John Cena for much of that, he was often deployed as hired muscle on Estrada's behalf, which helped him mix in with some of the other major heels when alliances were required.
January 2007 saw his streak ended by a banana skin loss to Cena that set up a Last Man Standing match at the Royal Rumble that many consider to be the best match either man had and the best match in the history of the stipulation.
A blood-soaked war and one of the last contests of the era to explore the depths of Sports Entertainment brutality before the company - led by Cena in particular - went PG in 2008, the contest was a revelation on multiple fronts. Umaga was rewarded by an association with the organisation's biggest feud going into WrestleMania. He was to be Vince McMahon's in-ring avatar against Donald Trump's chosen representative Bobby Lashley in a "Battle Of The Billionaires". The bout was refereed by Stone Cold Steve Austin and ended with McMahon having his head shaved. It "drew the house", as it were, with the 'Samoan Bulldozer' front and centre.
Three major defeats were unfortunately three too many for a gimmick that was always riskily one dimensional. Further losses alongside Vince and Shane McMahon should have fed into a babyface turn for the well-liked monster, particularly after fans went wild for the makeshift team of Umaga and Cena during a random edition of Raw that summer. Alas, he was turned heel in short order because another babyface needed him on that side of the divide.
Triple H returned from injury at SummerSlam, and Umaga was deemed a perfect foil for 'The Game' for much of the second half of '07. Bouncing around the midcard between 2008-09, he was released in June '09 when it emerged that he'd refused to enter rehab after a failure of the company's Wellness Policy. Rumours trickled through that he was potentially set to return at the 2010 Royal Rumble, but reality had a different plan. Umaga passed away in 2009 at just 36; one of too many tragedies of wrestlers dying young, but not the first from the iconic family tree to pass before their time either.
With such a big family comes love and legacy, but also significant loss. More of the wrestlers mentioned throughout this piece have passed than those that remain around today to see the very real successes of the family. Rocky roads have persistently resulted in incredible outcomes - something both Dwayne Johnson and Roman Reigns can attest to. The positions they hold at the very top of pro wrestling weren't arrived at with any kind of ease, even when WWE were looking to make the path as smooth as possible. If anything, both suffered the consequences of the company rolling out the red carpet for them as babyfaces because they'd seen the quality of the work and real life people and assumed audiences would too.
When Umaga's run was such a surprise hit, it unlocked a new compromise between old values and new that could be reached. But the surviving "elders" of The Bloodline are now woven into the updated fiction - Roman was annoited 'Tribal Chief' by Afa and Sika, who have since acted as silent authorities in the fiction. How, upon assuming his 'Final Boss' moniker, The Rock fits in hasn't been explored yet, but likely will be when all of the key names are back in the fold.
In the meantime, day-to-day representation of the samoan family tree sits primarily with the newest incarnation of The Bloodline and the ex-communicated Usos. Sons of Rikishi, twins Jimmy and Jey (Jonathan and Joshua) eventually became integral to the success of The Bloodline between 2020 and 2023, with Jey's bold exit from and Jimmy's desperate re-entry into the group driving a WrestleMania 40 match between the two. It was a bad match sadly, but the journey the pair had been on to get to that point over a decade after their debut may one day claim its rightful place as the real "cinema" behind the endless superkicks.
Their 2010 debut on the main roster was as non-committal as anything else on the shows at the time. They were heels alongside Tamina Snuka, and more than a few allusions were made to their lineage, but it was all half-in/half-out. They taped their thumbs like Umaga without ever really deploying Samoan Spikes. They borrowed The Headshrinkers'/Snuka finishers for what later became known as the Uso Splash.
They incorporated historic iconography into their aesthetics, but were never given promo time to flesh out the characters beyond the commentators drilling down the family bonds every week. By 2010, this simply wasn't enough either. WWE had attempted to make Legacy - a group kept exclusively for second or third generation wrestlers - a thing audiences cared about, but the WrestleMania payoff that year between founder members Randy Orton, Cody Rhodes and Ted Dibiase Jr played out to virtual silence.
That stable hadn't exactly done right by Bloodline lore either - Afa Anoa'i Jr (son of Afa, brother of Samu) was, in kayfabe, deemed too useless to hold down a place as a permanent member, and "Manu" became something of a punchline to describe how weak the talent pool appeared to be across WWE's supposedly market leading network of developmental brands. They toiled for years in what was effectively the worst spot on WWE's main roster.
Vince McMahon historically hated tag team wrestling, and the majority of the time they weren't even fighting for the belts. This also robbed them of spots on WrestleMania's main card for a period of time that beggared belief. Despite debuting in 2010, they had to wait until WrestleMania 34 eight years and multiple tag title reigns into their time on the show before they gained a spot on the then-bloated 'Show Of Shows'.
It was overdue reward for a series of cult classic matches they'd had between 2013-2016 against the likes of The Shield, The Wyatt Family, Tyson Kidd & Cesaro and The New Day. The latter unit were key to Jimmy and Jey making the next move up the ladder - Big E, Xavier Woods and Kofi Kingston's tremendous talent and force of will had resulted in a renewed burst of energy for the beleaguered division, and at long last The Usos stood a chance of being able to benefit from all their hard work.
Prior to mid-2016, the only reward afforded to them was job security, but the pair wanted to thrive rather than merely survive. Fierce in-ring consistency during the era alongside a pivot to an aesthetic that mirrored elements of their samoan heritage ensured they were two of the more vital spokes on WWE's ever changing wheel, but the return of WWE's split rosters was a door they aggressively booted down. Drafted to a SmackDown Live show that was intentionally more vibrant and experimental in order to try and secure the billion dollar deal the company eventually scored in 2018, a loss in a Tag Title Tournament to American Alpha resulted in the veterans snapping on the new NXT call-ups.
After a promo on the much-missed Talking Smack post-show explaining that the "Play Hard In The Paint" smiles might have to take a backseat to them earning respect through violence. With that came a new look one week later, a new and (far superior entrance) theme the week after that, and in less than six months they were SmackDown Tag Team Champions on a show they ostensibly owned. The biggest and best challenge they'd ever face emerged following a post-WrestleMania roster shake-up, with The New Day landing on the blue brand as beloved babyfaces.
What followed was a summer series of undercard classics. Comfortably the company's best feud of the year from an in-ring point of view, they took their contests from pre-shows to pay-per-views, trading the belts in blinding efforts at Battleground and Hell In A Cell, on SmackDown itself in a "Sin City Street Fight", and most notably in a match of the year contender on the SummerSlam Kickoff show.
By the year's end, the two teams had built up such mutual respect that Jimmy and Jey were babyfaces once again, and the aforementioned WrestleMania 34 debut saw them enter as Tag Team Champions. They'd work tag title matches on the card every year until their singles match against one another at 40, including, fittingly, the Night One main event against Kevin Owens and Sami Zayn as The Bloodline story ruled the wrestling world.
It was an incredible full circle moment for the brothers, the angle itself, and the Samoan wrestling dynasty. Headlining both shows with overlapping stories that continued to carry WWE on past WrestleMania to even greater heights, Roman Reigns and The Usos specifically were the acts that best exemplified Samoan heritage entering its perfect final form after decades of close calls and near misses.
Even when briefly cast as a babyface Bloodline at various points between 2015 and 2019, the trio never really felt dominant as their headline spots suggested. An image of them covering Baron Corbin in dog food from the January 31st 2020 edition of the show scanned like a big win but was in fact all three at something of a low ebb.
The stakes couldn't have been lower, and though Roman was headed back to the main event and likely a chorus of boos to boot, there was nothing but more tag team treadmill stuff in Jimmy and Jey's future. The pandemic resulting in Roman's exit was everything for the three - with it came the subservience of Jey after two brutal defeats at Clash Of Champions and Hell In A Cell 2020, and the folding in of Jimmy in 2021 resulted in the subsequent rise and fall of Roman's empire.
They were the real life best and kayfabe worst of times for the family, and with big matches and pivotal spots yet again key to WrestleMania's success in 2024, the various grand finales seemed to mark a incredible chapter for this current crop of Samoan superstars. But in XL's aftermath, what exactly is the current status of The Bloodline itself?