El Grande Americano has become one of the more unexpected success stories in AAA over the past year, and according to Chad Gable, the whole thing traces back to his own idea.
Speaking with WittyWhittier, Gable explained that the concept grew out of a story he was already involved in with a group of luchadors, and that donning the mask was his own way of pushing that story further without any real sense of where it might lead his career.
Funny how this business works, wrestling itself, you never know what’s going to work out, what’s not going to work out, what’s going to surprise us, and what people are going to really latch on to. I think that’s been the story of the last year and a half or two years. The El Grande Americano thing started just as me wanting to put more into a story that I was already involved with these luchadors, and I wanted to take it to another level.
What followed wasn’t part of the plan. Gable underwent shoulder surgery to repair a torn rotator cuff and bicep tendon, sidelining him and forcing Ludwig Kaiser to step into the El Grande Americano gimmick while he recovered.
This was my idea of donning this mask and my way to try to elevate this story, not knowing where it was going to take me career-wise. You never really can predict stuff like that. Then on top of that, the injuries. For those that don’t know, I had a shoulder surgery, rotator cuff was torn, bicep tendon, all kinds of stuff that I had to have repaired, that forced me to go away.
Kaiser went on to make the character his own during Gable’s absence, setting up a built-in angle for when Gable eventually returned and faced off against the new El Grande Americano in a Mask vs. Mask match, which Gable lost. He’s since worked to repair his standing with several of the luchadors he’d previously disrespected in the role.
Again, it’s circumstantial. Who knows where we’d be right now if all of these elements had not just turned out the way they did. Somebody else took over the El Grande Americano gimmick, and they were doing it while I was hurt. I come back.
Reflecting on how it all unfolded, Gable called the journey a genuine mix of highs and lows, but said looking back now, he couldn’t have scripted it any better himself — crediting the unpredictable nature of wrestling for turning an idea he pitched into one of the most talked-about storylines connected to his career.
Now we’ve got a built-in story there. It is like you said, a bit of an odyssey and a journey we had to go through. I would call it valleys and peaks and lows and things like that to get here. But now, where I’m at, it’s almost like, man, I couldn’t have written it any better than it turned out.
Gable is set to put his current focus elsewhere for now, defending the Intercontinental Championship against Rey Mysterio on the August 17 episode of WWE Raw.
