With the brand new angle of Kurt Angle being the father of Jason Jordan, this seemingly leaves ex-American Alpha partner Chad Gable out in the cold. For weeks, the duo – while being red-hot in NXT – experienced a major slump in their momentum as a result of poor booking. The team even triumphantly won the SmackDown Live Tag Team Championships on the final episode of 2016 by defeating the Wyatt Family.
However, American Alpha soon started to drift away, and become less relevant in the tag team scene. Their title reign ended weeks before WrestleMania 33 , and they were thrown into the Andre the Giant Memorial Battle Royal.
After a number of weeks of the WWE seemingly having nothing planned for them, Chad Gable appeared in a match on SmackDown Live to face AJ Styles for a position to be in the No. 1 Contender’s battle royal for the United States Championship. Two weeks prior, he appeared as a “resident” of Dayton, Ohio to face Kevin Owens in the U.S. Open Challenge.
Gable has the charisma to stand alone as a name on the SmackDown Live brand. However, it will be difficult, since there are a number of midcard names who are clawing and scratching to ascend higher in rank.
For Gable, according to the Wrestling Observer Newsletter , he is planned on having a Sami Zayn-like status on the roster. As shown by his efforts against Owens and Styles , he will simply be a “good hand” on the blue brand for the time being.
Before Jordan started teaming up with Gable, he was trying to hone his craft, and being placed in teams and angles on the brand, which did not elevate him much. The team first started as heels, due to the cockiness of Gable. However, they started to gain so much respect for their athleticism, eventually their villainous ways turned heroic.
With Gable out to prove himself alone on SmackDown Live , he has quite a steep hill to climb in the midcard level. Right now, the United States Champion is Kevin Owens and the top contender is AJ Styles. Both of these competitors have been a world champion in the past year.
[Featured Image By WWE]
