Chad Gable says El Grande Americano was his idea, and that he built the character to insult lucha libre culture and draw heat, not to get laughs.
Gable explained where the character came from on Insight with Chris Van Vliet. He said it started with matches he was already having against luchadors as Chad Gable.
“I was doing some stuff with some of the luchadors in I think like September, October of that year as Chad Gable, and I thought, man, we can get a lot out of this. I think a lot more than we are right now. We can turn this into something special, and I thought of this idea of like donning a mask, right, and kind of using it to insult their culture. Get more personal with this, rather than just go out and have matches with these guys, because the matches are going to be great. We can do the great matches, but to make it special, we have to find a way to elevate it, and that was an idea to elevate it.
“And then when the right people got heed of the idea and kind of thought, ‘Man, this might work,’ then they started contributing and made it even better. Right, creative team, Hunter, all these people. Like my concept was there, the genesis of it, but I needed all this other help to like really formulate it into what it became.”
Van Vliet asked whether the original idea was simply to get heat. Gable said it was, and that it was never meant to be funny.
“To get heat, and I think maybe some people thought that it was going to be like a comedy character or something. I don’t think we ever presented it as that, and there was never the intention. It was never supposed to be like funny, you know. Entertaining, sure, but no, it was never a ha-ha funny type thing. I think it was kind of mean-spirited to jab at these guys, to give them a reason to really come after me, and insult an entire culture of wrestling to get some heat. And I think it worked.”
Gable said the performers he looked up to were known for reinventing themselves.
“You’d find some of the best performers, I think, people that I’ve looked up to and that deserve a lot of credit in our business, are famous for reinventing themselves and constantly giving themselves new avenues, new gimmicks and new ways to approach their character they already have. So I’d be remiss if I didn’t learn from them and try to do that myself.”
Gable debuted the mask on the March 10, 2025 episode of Raw. He was set to face Rey Mysterio at WrestleMania 41 in Las Vegas, but Mysterio was injured on SmackDown the night before and Rey Fenix took his place. El Grande Americano won the match. Gable said he did not sleep that night and found out what was happening only hours before the show.
“I was gonna wrestle Rey, and like he was one of my heroes growing up, and it kind of [was] another thing to slip through my fingers, you know. Like I had such high hopes, and I know he did too… And then finally, like, we found the solution, or they found the solution, and it worked out great. Like, got an awesome opportunity for Fenix. We still got on the show, and the character got to continue to evolve.”
Gable said the plan from there was to keep going after lucha libre as both characters.
“I continued kind of this assault, right, on the whole lucha libre culture and all this stuff, and I did it as both characters. Like Chad Gable was also in on this, you know, with Vikingo. You can even see all the insults and things I was hurling at him during the match… This whole farce that I was the best luchador in the world, right? Like how insulting to all these guys. We have like the best roster of luchadors that you could ever dream, couldn’t come up with. These guys, and I’m here claiming to be the best. I just love it, man.”
A rotator cuff injury took Gable out of action in June 2025, and the character carried on with Ludwig Kaiser under the mask. Gable said he watched it week to week and wanted his character back, but credited the second El Grande Americano for what he did with it.
“Who knows what would have happened to that character had it just been forgotten until I came back? You know, it may have gotten lost in the shuffle. We may have never got back to any point of importance… So, all credit in the world to him for not just keeping it alive, because he didn’t just keep it alive, he made it thrive.”
Gable returned as “The Original” El Grande Americano in January and eliminated Kaiser’s version from the Royal Rumble. Kaiser beat him in a Mask vs. Mask match on May 30 at AAA Noche de los Grandes in Monterrey, and Gable unmasked afterward. JBL later called Gable “the best wrestler in the world” and the match “wrestling at its very best.”
Gable told Van Vliet there is more to the story still to come.
“There’s going to be a moment that will be told someday that I don’t want to ruin now about the whole mask versus mask story and kind of the genesis and some of the origins of it, that I think will be pretty cool, that will come out… There’s more to it. It’s going to be a little bit more to be revealed.”
Gable won the Intercontinental Championship from Penta at SummerSlam in August. Kaiser, as El Grande Americano, defends the AAA Mega Championship against Dominik Mysterio at Heroes Inmortales on October 24 in Mexico City.
You can listen to the full episode of Insight with Chris Van Vliet below.
