USO Brothers Finally Return Home WWE Tag Team Champions

By Duwayne Escobedo

Yes, the high-flying, ring-rattling Samoan warriors known as the USO Brothers want to dominate every World Wrestling Entertainment tag team match. After all, the 479-pound duo is now the reigning champions.

But for twin brothers, Jimmy and Jey, it’s about more than winning. It’s about reviving WWE’s rich tag team tradition. It’s about living up to their family’s wrestling history.

The fan-favorite 28-year-old phenoms earned their WWE title for the first time March 3. They’re obviously proud of their belts, draping them over their shoulders at a recent appearance to throw out the ceremonial first pitch at a minor league baseball game in Pensacola, Fla.—their hometown and site of their next WWE fight on Friday, July 18. The Pensacola Blue Wahoos sellout crowd showered them with chants of “Uso!”

“Tag team wrestling was a lost art,” says 6-foot-1, 228-pound Jey, whose real name is Joshua Samuel Fatu. “The Usos had to get it off the ground again.”

Plus, adds Jimmy (real name Jonathan Solofa Fatu), they had to bring honor to their family. Their father, Solofa Fatu who went by Rikishi, was a well-known professional wrestler, as well as uncles and cousins, including Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson.

“We have a family lineage and felt we had to do it for our family,” the 6-foot-2, 251-pound Jimmy says. “It’s like wrestling royalty.”

Wrestling started at a very early age in a Fatu household that had four boys in all. Jimmy and Jey are the oldest.

“The four of us were always in the living room jumping around, breaking tables and couches,” Jimmy says. “Our mom was always telling us to stop.”

However, their dreams of stardom had them on the gridiron, not the squared circle. The brothers starred for the Pensacola, Fla., Escambia High School football team and then both played linebacker at the University of West Alabama. Jimmy says Jey played football better but reminiscing about the glory days leads them both to recall Jimmy’s 98-yard fumble return against Mosley High School near Panama City, Fla.

“It was the slowest 98 yards ever run,” says Jimmy, proving the brothers’ sense of humor and fun-loving nature are no act on the world wrestling stage.

Fortunately for them and wrestling fans everywhere, their football careers never panned out. Instead, they turned to the family business—professional wrestling—after college. Nearly five years ago, they got their start in Florida Championship Wrestling and four months later in March 2010, the Usos defeated The Fortunate Sons to win the FCW Florida Tag Team Championship.

“We’ve believed in each other since day one,” Jimmy says. “Every day and every night, it’s what we loved to do. We just wanted to entertain. We had to build the Uso Brothers name.”

Unless you live under a rock, you know their careers did take off. For the past two years, they have walked into sold-out arenas around the world to wrestle. Now, fans go wild when the Uso Brothers enter with their long black hair, tattooed arms and chests, painted faces and perform a traditional Polynesian dance and war chant. Their intimidating entrance, which befits professional wrestling champions, ends with pyrotechnics and them shouting, “Ewwwww!” with the crowd shouting back, “Sooooo!” It sets off a chant of “Uso! Uso! Uso!” by fans.

Once the match begins, the acrobatic Uso Brothers are famous for their “Big Splash” and other Olympic diving-like launches off the ropes and into and out of the ring.

That kind of stardom has meant being on the road nearly two years straight. They are unable to conceal their happiness about returning to Pensacola as champs and about performing in their first ever WWE event in front of their hometown. The Uso Brothers are going up against their wrestling rivals—The Wyatt Family’s Luke Harper and Erick Rowan.

“Our work has picked up a lot,” Jey says jokingly. Brother Jimmy adds: “We’ve missed the best beaches in the world right here in Pensacola. It’s been a lot of hard work. But this has been our personal goal. I’m happy we met it.”

And the future? What will it bring for these Samoan warriors?

“All we have is each other,” Jimmy says. “What are we going to do? Break up? Never.”

WHAT: WWE Live SummerSlam Heatwave Tour
WHEN: 7:30 p.m. Friday, July 18
WHERE: Pensacola Bay Center, Pensacola, Fla.
COST: $15 to $95
DETAILS: 800-745-3000 or www.ticketmaster.com