Chad Gable had no idea putting on a mask would eventually lead to someone else stealing his identity and an El Grande Americano civil war. Turns out, the entire thing started because Gable himself wanted to make one WWE storyline more interesting.
While speaking to WittyWhittier, Gable revealed that the original El Grande Americano character was actually his idea, rather than something WWE creative handed him. At the time, Gable was already working a program involving luchadors and felt there was another level they could take it to.
“The El Grande Americano thing, you know, started just as me wanting to kind of put more into a story that I was already involved with with these luchadors, and I wanted to take it to another level. This was my idea of donning this mask and, like, my way to try to elevate this story, not knowing where it was going to take me, you know, career-wise.”
Gable certainly couldn’t have known where it was going. He debuted the masked El Grande Americano character in March 2025, and what initially started as another wrinkle in his storyline quickly took on a life of its own. Then Gable got hurt. A serious shoulder injury required surgery, with Gable revealing that doctors had to repair multiple issues, including a torn rotator cuff and biceps tendon.
“And then on top of that, the injuries. So, 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.”
Normally, that could have put El Grande Americano on ice right along with him. Instead, Ludwig Kaiser put on the mask. Suddenly WWE had another El Grande Americano running around while the man who originally created the character was sitting at home recovering. Gable returned during the 2026 Royal Rumble, and WWE already had the easiest rivalry imaginable waiting for him: El Grande Americano vs. El Grande Americano.
“And 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 and now we’ve got a built-in story there.”
That built-in story eventually went all the way to AAA Noche de Los Grandes, where the two Americanos settled things in a Mask vs. Mask match. Gable lost and was finally unmasked, bringing his version of the character full circle.
“You never really can predict stuff like that. We had to go through, like, 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, you know? I feel very fortunate in that aspect.”
So, Chad Gable may not have written everything that happened afterwards, but apparently he’s the reason El Grande Americano existed in the first place.
What did you think of Chad Gable’s original El Grande Americano run? Did WWE get even more out of the character once Ludwig Kaiser took over the mask? Let us know in the comments below.
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