- Hello again everybody,
and welcome to our weekly interview on WWE.com.
My guests this week enter our forum
for the very first time.
The SmackDown Live Tag Team known as American Alpha,
Chad Gable and Jason Jordan.
Welcome guys.
- [Both] Thanks for having us.
- I'm excited to sit down and have
the opportunity to talk to y'all.
I want to start with Chad.
- Sure.
- Four years ago, 2012, you were in the Olympic Games,
now you're on SmackDown Live.
What was the biggest difference from moving from the amateur
ranks in the Olympics into what we do here in WWE?
- The biggest, there's a lot first of all,
but the crowd here.
The crowd is so different in the way that you have
to let the crowd affect you.
You have to use them.
I know that Jason and I use them in a way that like
we would not perform the way that we do without the crowd.
In the Olympics, or in amateur wrestling,
I couldn't do that.
You can't let the crowd affect you, you can't let them,
because that could cost you a match,
that could get to you.
We use their energy here, we need their energy,
and you can see us use it in a match,
and it's just a whole different, it's just a whole
different feel out there than you ever get.
And you have to let them in,
and you have to give it back to them.
It's awesome.
- You feed off of them.
- Jason, I've known you and followed you
since you started here.
- Yeah.
- We always new you had the potential,
you had everything.
Five tool player, as I like to say,
but there was always something missing.
It just didn't quite click.
Then all of the sudden, out of the blue,
you team up with this guy.
And it was one night and I remember I was there,
it was at an NXT show, at Full Sail,
and you tagged in and you went completely insane,
and you have this energy that I had never felt
from you before and it was that night that we
realized, wow American Alpha has arrived.
What was it about teaming with Chad
that turned your career around?
- I think what it is we have this
innate, natural chemistry between us,
and in some ways I can relate with Chad
being like my brothers, and I think that just makes me
so much more comfortable and it just allows me to just open
up and be myself, and just loosen up.
And when I am allowed to just be myself
and feel free, I was able to do,
what we did I believe was TakeOver: Respect,
if I'm not mistaken.
It was just like something came over me
and it was, it was not thinking, not wondering
what if, what if we don't win, what if this doesn't
happen, and it was just, do us.
- [Michael] A zen.
- Yeah, and when it happened and that moment of
when I finally felt it and it was just,
the crowd came in on it, the crowd reacted,
and that just, I almost lost it.
It was to the point where, I remember I was almost
in tears, I was taking out Baron Corbin I believe,
and when it happened I suplexed him and I came up
and I pulled the straps down and the crowd was there
and it was just like, wow.
Time just stood still,
and I was able to capture that moment, capture that feeling
and feed off of that.
It allowed us to continue to move forward and make steps
to becoming what we are now.
- And you did move forward because I want to take
everyone to NXT TakeOver: Dallas,
because that's when you arrived.
You won the tag team titles.
What an emotional night for you guys, right?
- So, you mentioned the Olympics briefly,
believe it or not that was obviously the greatest
day of my life, and at the same time one of the
worst days of my life because as you know I came
up a little bit short there at the Olympics, right?
Now, to have this goal my entire life
and then kind of come up short is like,
something was missing.
There was still something in me, there was fire left,
and I needed to fill that little gap that I left,
and we found this opportunity, and..
- Which is funny that you said that because the same
thing happened for me with my NCAA career.
I was #1 ranked heavyweight,
and came into the NCAA Tournament,
and came up short.
I didn't win a national championship,
I didn't even All-American.
The same exact feeling that Chad had
with the Olympics, I had.
- And for us, this Dallas thing was like,
this is our chance.
We can redeem ourselves here.
We got our chance to win on the big stage.
- [Michael] You guys were in tears.
- Exactly, it's.
- The combination of so many things coming together.
A lifetime of hard work coming to one moment
and it all paid off because we knew what it felt like
to get to that point, to be so close, to be so close
to achieving your dreams, your goals,
and everything's there, and everything can fall into place,
and it doesn't happen.
It can mentally ruin you.
- For an athlete, that's the worse thing in the world.
There's nothing worse.
- So, we got a shot a redemption and it happened,
and it didn't slip through our hands again,
it's hard not to get emotional.
It's hard not to come to tears when it finally happens.
- Couple other questions,
I want you to reenact something for me,
because I was actually at the announce desk
during SmackDown Live, when the announcement was made that
American Alpha had been drafted to SmackDown Live.
You guys were watching this live
at the Performance Center in Orlando.
- Yeah. - Yes.
- I’m the camera, I'm on you.
You hear your names, what was your reaction?
- The buildup was terrible first of all
because Daniel Bryan said we're drafting the best tag team
in NXT now, I am of the opinion obviously
that we were the best tag team in NXT,
but he has a very interesting take on wrestling.
So, you don't know what he's thinking,
but when he started the catchphrase,
we kinda settled down and I'm like,
he's got to be saying it.
To be honest, the way that he did it,
and the enthusiasm that he said all these things with,
he didn't have to do that, you know.
He made it seem like this enormous deal.
- But what did you do when you heard your names?
- Me, I froze.
- He did, I looked at him, like do something do something.
- I was like, oh my God it happened.
It's happening, this is real.
- And like I was just cheesing.
- And then like finally, when I was like snap out of it,
no it's real, I turned and looked and you were smiling
and I was like, it's real.
It's happening.
That was my reaction was just wow.
It actually finally is happening.
- So guys, this is real the fact that you're in a tournament
to crown the first-ever SmackDown Tag Team Champions.
You've already advanced,
so how do you plan on winning the gold?
- Oh, that's easy right?
- Yeah should we tell them?
Do you want to start? You start.
- We're going to stay ready.
- Willing.
- And Gable.
- So sick.