In true WWE fashion, it sounds like the decision to go through with the tag team unification match on Friday Night SmackDown was made at the last minute. The match between RK-Bro and The Usos has been teased ever since Roman Reigns became the undisputed champion by defeating Brock Lesnar at WrestleMania 38. Having both sets of tag-team belts would give The Bloodline another boost, as they'd hold every major men's title in the company from both the Raw and SmackDown brands simultaneously.
In a somewhat surprising turn of events, WWE booked the unification bout for the May 20 edition of SmackDown, and the social media impact following The Usos' victory was immediate. The brand trended on Twitter, and as of May 23rd, the YouTube video showing The Usos beating RK-Bro had nearly 2.5 million views. This match also spiked ratings to north of two million and was the most-watched edition of SmackDown since April 15th. The victory had a significant impact online, but the outcome almost didn't happen as fans saw it on Friday night.
Dave Meltzer reported earlier this month that WWE planned on having The Usos take on RK-Bro, but didn't intend on unifying the tag-team titles. That did come to pass on SmackDown, however, and the insider recently spoke at length on the Wrestling Observer Radio about the booking decision and how down to the wire it came. (h/t to WrestlingNews.co for the transcription): You know that was a last minute decision... They had no planned finish... I mean literally, there was no plan other than the big angle… The decision itself wasn’t made until Friday.”
The "big angle" that Meltzer references is Roman Reigns interfering during the end match. This sets him up to face Riddle and Randy Orton in his next two title defenses before taking on Drew McIntyre at the Clash At The Castle special event. Based on this information, it sounds like even the tag team titles are being used as a prop to propel Reigns to even greater heights as The Tribal Chief. The Usos, for their part, are now undisputedly one of the most decorated tag teams in WWE history. Their run alongside Reigns has been incredibly dominant and harkens back to the territory days when champions would have reigns that lasted for several hundreds of days.
It's not all that hard to imagine Reigns making it all the way to WrestleMania 39 without losing the Universal Championship, which would put his title run at more than 900 days before perhaps taking on someone like The Rock. Meanwhile, the Usos are in the midst of a 300-plus day run with the SmackDown tag-team titles. It'll be interesting to see if WWE calls them "undisputed" champions instead of "unified" champions like they've been doing with Reigns. Not physically unifying the titles leaves open the possibility of getting one set off of either Reigns or The Usos while still having them remain champions. The Money In The Bank premium live even seems like a particularly attractive and easy way to make that happen, but WWE fans will have to just wait and see for now.
Sources: Wrestling Observer Radio, WrestlingNews.co