Background Marcus Bagwell had competed in the tag team division in WCW since 1993, during which time he held the WCW World Tag Team Championship with two different partners. Teaming with 2 Cold Scorpio, he held the title belts for three weeks. He later won the title twice more while teaming with The Patriot, a team that was dubbed
Stars and Stripes due to the patriotic theme both wrestlers were using at the time. After being left behind by both partners, he expressed a desire to form a new tag team to challenge for the title again. According to WCW's storylines, his former partners believed that he was too demanding, and he was unable to find anyone interested in teaming with him due to his reputation as being "difficult to work with".
Formation The team was formed in August 1995 when Scott Antol signed a WCW contract and was placed with "tag team specialist" Marcus Alexander Bagwell. In the process, both men changed their
ring names, Antol changing his last name to "Riggs" and Bagwell shortening his name to simply Marcus Bagwell. Once together, they both wore short shorts and
leather vests (later wrestling tights and suspenders) to the ring and began clapping their hands over their head in time with their
entrance music, which sang their praises between choruses of the team name being repeated over and over. They wrestled on the first episode of
Nitro, defeating World Tag Team Champions
Dick Slater and
Bunkhouse Buck in a non-title match. Their first major appearance together came at the
Fall Brawl pay-per-view, where they defeated
The Nasty Boys in a match that aired on
Main Event.
Pro Wrestling Illustrated magazine stated that the team "work[ed] well as a unit and could soon challenge for the belts". As champions, the pair defeated Harlem Heat and the team of Dick Slater and Bunkhouse Buck. However, Bagwell and Riggs lost the titles back to Harlem Heat a month later on 10-29-95
Saturday Night. The American Males remained top challengers for the title belts for the rest of 1995, but were unable to regain the championship from Harlem Heat. By the end of 1995, The American Males were no longer being
pushed by WCW; they competed at
Starrcade 1995 in a
dark match and defeated
The Blue Bloods. Through most of 1996, they competed in the tag team division with no major storylines and never reached the same heights as when they were champions. They were able to defeat other
mid-card teams like the
Faces of Fear, and they competed in a dark match prior to
Slamboree 1996, defeating
The Shark and
Maxx. They were consistently defeated by the company's top tag teams, and
Pro Wrestling Illustrated noted that they were getting lost in a "very deep" tag team division that included
The Road Warriors,
Public Enemy, Harlem Heat, The Nasty Boys, the Blue Bloods,
Lex Luger and
Sting,
Four Horsemen,
The Steiner Brothers, and
The Outsiders, among others. which intensified over the weeks. At
World War 3 on November 24, 1996, the frustration came to a head as Bagwell attacked Riggs following both men's elimination from the three-ring battle royal that served as the main event. The next night on
Nitro Eric Bischoff, representing the
New World Order (nWo)
stable, informed all WCW wrestlers that they would become targets of the nWo if they did not join the group within 30 days. Bagwell and Riggs walked to the ring shortly after Bischoff's statement, with Bagwell looking to join and Riggs trying to talk him out of it. Bagwell decided to join the nWo,
turning on Riggs and dissolving the team in the process. In a scripted interview, Bagwell stated, "Who needs Riggs anymore when I have the nWo?!" Riggs would go on to briefly feud with
Raven, later joining
The Flock, while Bagwell formed
Vicious and Delicious with Scott Norton before suffering a severe neck injury that kept him out of action for a while. After losing the championship, he formed another tag team, pairing with
Lex Luger to form Totally Buffed. When Riggs joined
Extreme Championship Wrestling in 2000, he did a
parody of the American Males gimmick by calling himself "The U.S. Male" and using their overhead clap taunt. ==Championships and accomplishments==