6 Ups & 4 Downs From WWE Raw (23 Dec - Results & Review)

2. Too Little, Far Too Late

Five months. That’s how long Chad Gable and the Creed Brothers have been aligned as a heel stable with jock energy to spare.

This should have been one of the easiest groups to book – a faction with amateur wrestling bona fides and Gable looking to put the comedy act of Alpha Academy behind him. They should have crushed the Alphas en route to becoming a solid force in the tag division, with Gable serving as a gatekeeper in the midcard.

Instead, the group feuded with – and lost to – the Wyatt Sicks before transitioning to a rivalry with the LWO that petered out last month. The group has been a huge disappointment, seemingly suffering from an identity crisis as they vacillate between track suits and business suits.

Now, it looks like Gable finally is going to feud with Otis, dispatching with Akira Tozawa Monday night in a nothing match that only served to create the staredown between the former tag champs and set up a match for next week that should have happened four months ago.

Short of an absolute commitment to book the group adequately at this point, it’s just impossible to get invested in American Made. There would need to be a good four-to-six weeks of consistent booking to convince cynics that WWE is serious about them.

More likely, next week’s match is going to be a comedy affair with Otis either picking up the win or having to try to overcome Gable and both Creeds before finally succumbing, which will do nothing to make this jock heel stable feel like anything but a star-spangled New Judgment Day.