They were promoted to WWE's main roster in Prior to his professional wrestling career, Bogojevic was an amateur wrestler , winning the Greco-Roman junior Nationals in his weight class, the national title in the Junior Pan-American Games, and a bronze medal in Greco-Roman wrestling at the Pan American Sports Festival , and was a prospect for the Olympic Games team, but was not chosen. He was a champion at the Greco-Roman junior Nationals. During this time, he formed a tag team with Tucker Knight , calling themselves Heavy Machinery.
On December 17, , it was announced that Heavy Machinery would be debuting on the main roster. By the end of , Otis entered a romantic storyline with Mandy Rose. On the February 19 episode of SmackDown , Otis attacked Rey Mysterio at the orders of Gable after their tag team match, turning heel for the first time in his career.
On the March 13, episode of Raw , Gable found Otis backstage taking part in a photo shoot with Maximum Male Models the team of ma. Otis then decided to leave with Maximum Male Models instead of Gable.
Midway through the match, Maxxine walked out to bring Otis backstage. In the weeks that followed, Alpha Academy began to slowly turn face with their crowd reactions growing louder and louder.
Maxxine pinned Valhalla after performing a sunset flip on her. At the end of the ceremony, Gable presented Dupri with her own Alpha Academy letterman's jacket. As Dupri was about to put on the jacket, The Viking Raiders appeared on the ramp to distract the team. Valhalla then attacked Dupri from behind and stole her jacket. Despite dominating the match, Gable and Otis lost but Dupri managed to take back her jacket. In April , Gable turned heel after failing to win the Intercontinental Championship multiple times, with Gable assigning blame that he had spent too much time training his "loser" stablemates and declaring that the stable's focus is to win Gable the Intercontinental Championship.
