Chad Gable was the driving force behind the El Grande Americano character and has now explained why he decided to introduce the masked persona into WWE.
In the lead-up to WrestleMania 41, Gable made his entrance as the Grande Americano character. In storyline, the character was Gable claiming that he had learned “the dark arts of lucha libre” and looked to embarrass masked wrestlers by defeating them despite not being a luchador.
Speaking with WittyWhittier, the reigning Intercontinental Champion said that he created the character as he wanted to be more involved with the luchadors of Raw:
“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.
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.”
How An Injury Changed The Chad Gable El Grande Americano Storyline
With Gable suffering the shoulder injury, there were concerns that the Americano character may be written off TV and the storyline dropped. However, Ludwig Kaiser went on to play a different iteration of Americano. With Gable Americano making his return at the Royal Rumble, both men began their rivalry to see who was the supreme masked wrestler.
Although the storyline was more comedic in WWE, things were very different in AAA. Gripping the fans with the intense story, the rivalry became one of the biggest in recent history for the promotion. Culminating in the mask vs. mask match, many believe this to be a match of the year contender.
Reflecting on the Grande Americano rivalry, Gable admitted that it turned out better than he would have expected:
“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. 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.”
H/t to Fightful for the use of transcription.
Featured image: WWE
