American Alpha Is the Modern-Day Version of The World's Greatest Tag Team

At times, the high-energy mat masters American Alpha look to be made up of the same strands of DNA that comprised The World's Greatest Tag Team.

Chad Gable and Jason Jordan have revved up WWE NXT fans by turning chinlocks into compelling entertainment and waist-lock takedowns into key elements of the circus inside the squared circle. In doing so, the emerging duo is following Shelton Benjamin and Charlie Haas' lead.

In 2002, The Haas and Benjamin debuted on SmackDown as Kurt Angle's allies. They quickly rose through the tag team ranks and twice captured gold.

Angle was the centerpiece of that group, providing the presence and charisma that the rest of Team Angle couldn't. Benjamin and Haas thrived between the ropes. They were rock-solid in-ring performers who were never able to turn mat acumen into a trip to the marquee.

It's too early to tell whether American Alpha will follow that same trajectory, but seeing the pair perform, one can't help but think of The World's Greatest Tag Team. Switching to matching singlets of late only spotlights the teams' parallels. 

The comparison is so obvious that it's one the duo have made themselves on TV. As Uproxx's Brandon Stroud pointed out, "They're openly referencing The World's Greatest Tag Team, which is the kind of self-aware stuff you've just gotta say sometimes."

Amateur Backgrounds

American Alpha's similarities to The World's Greatest Tag Team began before the group's WWE days. Each member of the NXT duo first competed as an amateur wrestler in college.

Jordan was a standout wrestler for Indiana University. In his junior year, he made it to the NCAA Championships for the second time following a fifth-place finish in the Big Ten Championships. According to the Hoosiers' website, he was "ranked as high as 14th nationally."

Gable competed for Northern Michigan University before qualifying for the 2012 Summer Olympics in Greco-Roman wrestling.

That wrestling base is clear when the two step into the ring today. Their offense is smooth. Transitions from holds look effortless. Gable looks like a ring general already.

The World's Greatest Tag Team took a similar journey.

Haas first learned his craft at Seton Hall. As Irvin Muchnick wrote on Concussion Inc, Haas "was a two-time champion of the Big East Conference before earning a degree in economics."

His tag team partner wrestled at the University of Minnesota alongside Brock Lesnar. Benjamin twice earned All-American honors, according to GopherSports.com.

Unsurprisingly, both Haas and Benjamin were among the top technical wrestlers on the roster when they arrived on the WWE scene. Like American Alpha after them, they played up their amateur backgrounds by wearing singlets and leaning on mat-based offense.

A Parallel Dynamic

WWE followed a familiar formula when pairing Gable and Jordan.

Before American Alpha was born, the company had a bigger, more athletic, African-American wrestler (Benjamin) tag with a smaller, scrappy white guy (Haas). Together, they relied on mat wrestling punctuated with high-impact spots.

That's essentially a description of American Alpha, too. The key difference is that Benjamin was far more agile than Jordan, while Jordan is stronger than The Gold Standard. Still, the makeup of the team makes it feel like a remake of The World's Greatest Tag Team.

Haas and Benjamin finished off foes with Wrestling's Greatest Finisher, a double belly-to-back suplex.

American Alpha's finisher, Grand Amplitude, feels like a clear tribute to that move. They took Haas and Benjamin's two-man suplex and added height to it. Jordan tosses his victim in the air before Gable suplexes him to the canvas.

The NXT fan favorites stand out due to great chemistry with each other, like Haas and Benjamin before them. They are just as much of a fluid, fun-to-watch unit as their predecessors. The question now becomes whether they can be more than that.

Similar Success?

The World's Greatest Tag Team held the tag titles for much of 2003, knocking off Los Guerreros to begin its first reign and later Eddie Guerrero and Tajiri for their second run with the gold. The two collided with many of the company's top squads and were a big part of SmackDown for a stretch.

Benjamin and Haas split, however, in 2004.

The Gold Standard went on to be the bigger star of the pair, although he never rose past midcard title status. As gifted as he is, many wondered why he didn't take a few more steps up the WWE mountain. 

As for Haas, he became known for doing impressions of other wrestlers, sliding into a comedy role.

Gable and Jordan seem poised to be tag team champs as well. Their move to the main roster feels imminent. They may even have enough personality to outdo The World's Greatest tag Team.

As Evan Gomes of Daily DDT wrote, "These two have the talent to match their predecessors, and the charisma to maybe even surpass them in their success on the main roster."

American Alpha has mostly been silly during promos, but the group has caught on in a major way. If Gable can continue to show growth in the verbal part of the business, he is liable to make a bigger impact than Haas did.

And in terms of who among this team has the better career, it looks as if Gable will be the Benjamin of the pair. That's if WWE can see past his size.