Did This RAW Slip-Up Tarnish Jey Uso’s Battle Royal Victory?
Jey Uso just punched his ticket as the second number one contender for the World Heavyweight Championship alongside CM Punk with a RAW Battle Royal win—but a glaring botch from Mr. Yeet has fans cringing and WWE red-faced.
If you missed RAW this week: Jey Uso won the Battle Royal to earn a crack at CM Punk and the World Heavyweight Championship. Big win, messy finish. And the mess is what everybody is talking about.
How the finish went sideways
Jey spent most of the match under the umbrella of his twin, Jimmy Uso, who kept saving his skin. The payoff was supposed to be a clean bit of character work at the end: Jey yeets both Jimmy (a.k.a. Big Jim) and LA Knight to the floor and stands tall, shocking his brother in the process.
Instead, when Jimmy and Knight toppled over, Jey was late getting to the ropes. On replay, he hits the buckles a beat or two after they crash out, which makes the triple-spot look like three different moments stitched together. A fan clip on X did the rounds and the replies were brutal, with people saying the timing botch undercut what WWE clearly meant as a big betrayal beat.
That critique is not new for Jey. At 40, Mr. Yeet gets hammered online for spotty execution and a move-set that some fans don’t think screams world-title material. Seeing him chosen over a red-hot LA Knight only poured gas on it.
WWE has tried to turn Jey’s mistakes into story before
After Jey won the 2025 Royal Rumble, the company started building him up as the guy who could finally knock off Gunther at WrestleMania 41. Then he botched in back-to-back TV matches on the road to Mania. WWE smartly folded that into the angle: Jey doubting himself, the pressure rising, and Jimmy tearing into him backstage.
"Last week, you’ve been hitting that dive for 15 years, Uce. You became a damn joke. Tonight, the kill shot was right there, but you were out there slipping, messing up."
It worked for a while. Gunther leaned in on the disrespect, refusing to treat Jey as a singles threat and calling him a tag guy. But when the big moments keep getting fumbled, you run out of cover. You can’t keep kayfabing the same flaw forever.
So... why not LA Knight?
A big chunk of the audience wanted Knight in this spot, and it honestly lined up better on paper. Jey and Punk don’t have a direct, ongoing issue beyond what trickled out of the Roman Reigns orbit. Knight and Punk do, and they’ve been jawing for weeks on RAW. And here’s the narrative layup the company just walked past:
- Saturday Night’s Main Event on November 1, 2025 is LA Knight’s birthday.
- Knight has never been world champion; Punk has been clowning him in promos for exactly that.
- Having Knight win the Battle Royal and beat Punk on his birthday would have been the cleanest, loudest story you could tell right now.
- Fan sentiment clearly leaned Knight over Jey after that RAW finish.
What’s next
CM Punk vs. Jey Uso is set for the World Heavyweight Championship on Saturday Night’s Main Event, November 1, 2025. If WWE’s aim was to escalate Jey’s lone-wolf turn by having him dump Jimmy in the Battle Royal, the idea was solid; the execution just wasn’t. They can still get where they’re going, but the next big beat needs to land clean.
Where are you on this? Does the botched finish change how you see Jey as a top guy, and should LA Knight have been the pick here?