WWE News: Update On Why American Alpha Was Pulled From ‘WWE Backlash,’ How Will It Affect The New Tag Titles?

If you watched WWE SmackDown Live last night, you were hoping for an amazing tag team match between The Usos and the great new WWE tag team, American Alpha. To everyone’s shock, the Uso Twins took a cheap shot at both men to start the match, but it would backfire heavily as American Alpha was able to turn the tables and get the win within a minute. Clearly, it was a disappointment for both Uso brothers considering how long they have been with WWE and all the success they had.

This led the brothers to snap on Alpha, and they threw Jason Jordan hard into the ring post shoulder first before they attacked Chad Gable. They went right after Gable’s leg to hopefully take out the young man. They were able to accomplish their mission, and WWE confirmed on WWE.com that Gable would miss WWE Backlash due to an injury. The injury is going to keep the former Olympian out for at least three weeks, according to WWE Commissioner Shane McMahon.

WWE confirmed on Talking Smack that in order to replace American Alpha, they would have a match between the two teams that lost in the previous round of the tag team elimination tournament. The Hype Bros. and the Usos are now slated to wrestle at WWE Backlash. The winner will go on to face Heath Slater and Rhyno to decide the new tag champs later that night. This might make some folks happy, but many fans are upset because they really wanted to see American Alpha in the match for the tag titles.

With WWE confirming Chad Gable would be out, many fans want to know why WWE removed American Alpha from the SmackDown Live Tag Title match. It seemed almost ordained from above that American Alpha was going to win the titles at Backlash after the new titles were announced. That said, why remove them from a match that they clearly deserve to be involved in?

The rumor is that it all goes back to Heath Slater, and it also involves the Usos as well. It was reported a little while back that WWE had plans to turn Jimmy and Jey Uso heel at some point soon due to a top heel tag team being needed on SmackDown Live. With American Alpha the clear fan favorite babyface team, the Uso brothers fit in perfectly as heels to counter the former WWE NXT Tag Team Champions.

That said, the idea all along was to have the Uso brothers cost American Alpha the tag team championships in some way. We were never going to see American Alpha win the new SmackDown Live Tag Team Titles even if they made it to Backlash. Heath Slater comes into play as well, as he was told if he won the SmackDown Live Tag Team Title, he would earn a WWE SmackDown Live contract, which would end his free agent worries.

Slater has gotten over a lot with WWE fans, and due to his impressive work, it does look as if he will earn a contract this Sunday. That means he could have always been penciled in to win the tag titles, or they felt that he was so over that it would be dumb to give it to anyone else right now.

General Manager Daniel Bryan and Commissioner Shane McMahon might still give Heath a contract win or lose as they were planning to do before. It appears that WWE felt that it was best to have someone else take the loss to Slater and Rhyno at Backlash other than American Alpha, since they want to protect the new team from a bad loss at this point in their career. Even if the loss was due to interference from another team, it would still be a loss that WWE didn’t want to see American Alpha take at this point in their main roster run.

They could have always won the tag titles as most expected, but it is due to that expectation that WWE is going this direction. We might see an Usos vs. Beauty and the Man Beast final with Jason Jordan helping Slater and Rhyno win the tag team championship on Sunday night. We could also still see the Usos taking the new tag titles, then lose the belts to American Alpha at No Mercy this October. Regardless, it should be an interesting turn of events to see who takes the twin dimes at WWE Backlash.

[Image via WWE]