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Chad Gable (@wwegable) is a professional wrestler and the WWE Intercontinental Champion. He sits down with Chris Van Vliet in Minneapolis, MN to discuss his Intercontinental Championship win at SummerSlam, becoming El Grande Americano and the epic mask vs. mask match in AAA, now hitting the prime of his in-ring career, wrestling Kurt Angle, being Penta’s first WWE opponent, the rumors that Ludwig Kaiser might be the other El Grande Americano, why he hired fitness coach Jay Ferruggia to help with his diet and workouts and more!
I don’t even know if people know you have a YouTube channel, so I’m glad we’re putting that out there.
“Thank you, I appreciate that. Yeah, I started it last year when I documented my injury, my rehab process and my comeback. So for those that don’t know, I got my degrees in digital cinema filmmaking. This is like a second passion of mine, so I use that as a chance to edit this whole little documentary series together that I kind of shot, produced, edited all on my own, filled my time creatively during that injury period, which was great. Then we’ve got it all up on YouTube now, and we’ll continue to be adding stuff there going forward, including your session today.”
I know you like to train hot. The heat would be cranked way up in here. How hot are we talking?
“Misery, miserably hot. To the point where the temperature I usually keep it in here when I bring people in just to show them because sometimes people want to see, like my in-laws, for example. I brought them down here when I did some updates, and my mother-in-law will walk in and [almost instantly] she’s out. Won’t even bother spending a few minutes in here. It’s that hot.”
Is it like a sauna?
“I mean, it’s not 150 degrees, no. But with the humidity, because I keep it super humid in here as well. It’s just miserable. It’s not for a normal person. It’s not fun to train in here, but for me, it’s like heaven in here. I love it.”
Are you able to take a step back right now and realize that you’re in a really special moment in your career right now?
“Yes, I think I’m only able to do that because it’s happening this far along in my career. If you if this had happened when I was three or four years in, I don’t think I’d realize what I kind of had in my hands. Right now, I’m at a place where I can take that bird’s-eye view, just because of having gone through all these other things in my career. So I actually consider myself really fortunate that it took this long for something like this to happen because it’s like I appreciate it all that much more. I really do.”
Does the run that you’re on right now, being Intercontinental Champion, feel as sweet if it’s not for something like Shorty G happening?
“Definitely not. Thanks for the reminder. No, it’s funny. I was going through different phases in my career the other day for a different project I’m doing, and the Shorty G era came up. I’m documenting what happened, and I’m like, man, do I want to include this or not? But you have to because without those, it’s like nothing will ever feel as special as it should because you have it. It’s a cliche, but yeah, you don’t realize how good the good stuff is without the bad stuff, and I mean, let’s be fair. It wasn’t that bad. It’s just a character that nobody really identified with, and it didn’t really resonate. It wasn’t torture for me. It’s just not something I’m particularly proud of.”
I’m fascinated by the idea that if this thing doesn’t happen, then this other thing can’t happen after that. You’re probably not in this position now, if not for your shoulder injury. It’s crazy that it took an injury and then being away to put you on the trajectory that you’re on now.
“The amount of circumstances that led to the mask versus mask match, and then the ensuing things that happened after that are just almost unfathomable to think about at this point. The way they lined up, to your point, it’s the kind of stuff you can’t write even if you wanted to. It’s just happenstance. It’s just, to me, it tells me even more reason that I can stop believing in coincidence. It’s like some things were just meant to be. Things were meant to play out a certain way, and that’s out of our control. I’m no longer a believer in coincidence.”
Things were building for you, and then you got injured. So what are you thinking in that moment? Are you thinking I may never get back to this again?
“Yes, I would say right before I got injured, I was having what I would call the peak of my career. I mean, creatively as well. I was just so fulfilled. I was doing all this awesome stuff. I got to wrestle like twice in one day in LA that day on two epic shows.”
So how did the injury happen?
“So I was wrestling Vikingo at that World’s Collide show, and I had my arm posted on the ring apron. You could see a point in the match where he’ll do a 630, insanity, to the floor on me on my back, and my arm was posted in a way on the ring apron. When he came down on my back, then also it stretched my arm, but my arm stayed where it was, and I could feel it. I felt it. I’ve never torn a muscle or anything like that before, so it was new to me. So I knew something happened. Obviously, we do the match. Adrenaline carries you through, and then it was just a fully cortisol-filled day because I had to run across and do that Money in the Bank match as well. So I never gave it a chance to really settle in because it was just like we got stuff to do here, man. Then there was some pretty gnarly bumps in the Money in the Bank match as well that took their toll. Had a steak with my mom and dad that night. Probably a glass of wine. Went to sleep. Woke up the next day, and man. I don’t know that I’ve ever felt that level of fragility that I felt the next day, almost like any little thing I did, I was gonna just ruin myself, like super fragile. That’s when I knew something was wrong.”
How long did they tell you you’d be out for?
“Six months was the rough estimate, and I think I was ready in four and a half, certainly ready by five, but probably four and a half.”
So you talk about big bumps in that Money in the Bank match. There’s one where you climb up the ladder, it goes to the other ladder. You have a spot with Penta, and then LA Knight out of nowhere suplexes you off the top of the ladder.
“Still feeling that one!”
Now we’re learning that you were injured while that happened!
“Yep, that one jarred me. But at that point, you’re so deep into the day and such a crazy day that it’s kind of just another thing at the moment. Maybe that was the one that I was talking about, where the next day I just was it all caught up with me. But yeah, I mean, that match is a spectacle, man. There’s no reason to go into that and not deliver, right. I’ve had a couple of moments in those things that I look back at them now, holy crap! But there’s going to be hopefully, if I luck out, more to come.”
Did you know you’d be able to pull that off live?
“I was pretty confident. We have enough of the right professionals and players in there that are you can count on to do their part, and those matches are intimidating, but you have to go into them with the expectation that everybody’s going to deliver, and everybody did, and you just get magic out of those things.”
So I don’t know if this gets talked about enough, but El Grande Americano-that’s a character you came up with. I think there’s this idea that this was given to you, and like make with it what you can. How’d you come up with this,
“So I was doing some stuff with some of the luchadors in I think September, October of that year, beginning as Chad Gable, and I thought, man, we can get a lot out of this. A lot more than we are right now. We can turn this into something special. I thought of this idea of donning a mask 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. Then when the right people got heed of the idea, and kind of thought this might work, then they started contributing and made it even better. Creative team, Hunter, all these people. My concept was there, the genesis of it, but I needed all this other help to like really formulate it into what it became.”
So the original idea is just to get heat?
“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 funny. 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. I think it worked.”
It’s interesting that you say that it was never intended to be comedic, because I think that there’s this perception that it was just a joke gimmick that was given to you:
“Yeah, no, not at all. 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. So there’s just an example of that.”
So where was this story with El Grande Americano headed if you didn’t get injured?
“Well, I mean, it unfortunately took its own like kind of detour at WrestleMania that year when I was supposed to wrestle Rey Mysterio, and he got hurt. And this was going to kind of be a crescendo.”
A moment where you’re like, I might not have a WrestleMania match now?
“Sure. I mean, I didn’t find out until hours before. I was doing cardio in Vegas that morning of the Rey Fenix match, and still unaware of what we were going to do. I think I was up all night. I don’t think I slept that night. Because it’s like, man, I was going to wrestle Rey, and he was one of my heroes growing up, and another thing to slip through my fingers. I had such high hopes, and I know he did too. Rey was so gracious and looking forward to that match so much. I’m just on the treadmill that morning, it must have been like 4:30 in the morning, what are we gonna do? Then finally, we found the solution, or they found the solution, and it worked out great. Got an awesome opportunity for Fenix. We still got on the show, and the character got to continue to evolve.”
So then, where was it going to head from there if you don’t get injured?
“So from there, I continued kind of this assault right on the whole lucha libre culture and all this stuff, and I did it as both characters. 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. So it was just a matter of continuing to gain momentum as this character improved, this whole farce that I was the best luchador in the world, right? How insulting to all these guys. We have the best roster of luchadors, a dream couldn’t come up with these guys, and I’m here claiming to be the best. I just love it, man. I mean, we could have gone down any avenue we wanted; it would have been great.”
So then, when you get injured, how do you find out that the character is going to continue, but it’s not going to be you under the mask?
“I watched it play out, and on a weekly basis, grew more and more competitively driven to come back and take my character back. At the same time, really kind of grateful for the new Grande carrying it on the way he did, because who knows what would have happened to that character had it just been forgotten until I came back. 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.”
Have you heard the crazy rumor online that El Grande Americano might be Ludwig Kaiser?
“Ludwig? I don’t see it. I haven’t seen him for a while, but I don’t see it. The internet’s a wild place!”
So when you do return at the Royal Rumble, you have this great moment where it’s El Grande and El Grande facing off, and you do the Spider-Man meme.
“Yeah, we had to. Super cool moment, just to finally meet face to face, especially having that be my official comeback. Yeah, it was awesome, and it was a great starting point for us to paint that picture that we’re going to be headed down the same path collision course towards each other, and we both, I think in our heads had a very, very special intention for this story.”
So, would you say working with AAA is what really started to change things for you?
“Sure. I’ve had coaches my whole life, whether it’s my high school coaches, Greco-Roman coaches, that I’ve always looked up to and wanted to appease, and I’ve wanted to make them happy and satisfied with my performance. That’s been a goal of mine. It’s just bred into me from amateur wrestling. It’s a trait that doesn’t always serve me well, but it’s just that’s part of me, and that was happening with Undertaker in AAA. I don’t feel like I was giving him what he was looking for the longest time down there, and it bothered the hell out of me. Deep down to my core, it taught me a lot about myself actually, self-realization about who I’m trying to please and why and all these things- but I made it a mission. I’m like, no, I’m gonna show him that I can give him what he’s looking for, and it was that night that I did the first brawl, the ringside brawl with the other El Grande, where he finally convinced me just let it go, just show me who you are.”
What do you feel when people say that mask versus mask is the match of the year.
“I mean, what we do is subjective, right? It’s the highest compliment to me that people think of it in those terms. I always try to not focus so much on the accomplishment or what I’ve done, but the process and the journey, who I’m becoming in this process, and what’s next. So it’s great. It’s really nice to have these compliments, especially I think some of the highest compliments I was paid were from my peers. That told me not how great the match was, but the way it made them feel that reminded them what they loved about wrestling growing up. It made them feel the way they did when they were kids. That to me is the highest compliment because that’s what I’m seeking in wrestling now is to feel the way I felt when I watched Macho Man and Warrior at WrestleMania six with all the drama with Miss Elizabeth and all these things, and that’s the kind of stuff that fueled me to want to do this. So if I can give that to other people, then I feel like I’m really doing my job.”
Do you feel like it’s for sure the best match you’ve ever wrestled?
“I think it was the most dramatic, and I think I could say it’s the most dramatic match I’ve ever wrestled. “
The storytelling in it that makes it so special.
“Yes, it’s kind of the best of everything that we do. I think got a little bit in there. Whether it’s all these callbacks and characters that we had involved along the way, the actual wrestling in the match itself, and then some of the brutality. We got a little bit of blood, which we don’t always get a little. We got a lot. We get family, and we get the girlfriend coming back to save the day. The romance. It’s just like a movie playing out in a pro wrestling match, and to me, that’s the peak of what we do.”
The crowd is such a big character in that. That match was amazing, but that crowd leveled it up so much.
“Again, I don’t think none of that would have happened to the degree that it did without the crowd. They were such a big part of it, and I don’t know that I would have even ever found myself the way that I did if I didn’t realize that you can get a reaction out of an audience like that. They showed me what’s possible, and I owe them eternally for that. Not only that, but also their level of just forgiveness after the match, willingness to listen, give me my moment for the speech, as opposed to just booing me out of the building, which they very well could have done, was admirable. They were totally gracious.”
Then you take the mask off, and they’re chanting your name.
“I think what it does is speaks to the respect that the lucha libre fans have for the performance side of what we do. To me, I almost felt like they were just saying thank you to me for the story and all this stuff, when really it should have been me thanking them for everything that they put into that, but it’s just a mutual respect kind of generated in that building that night. Part of it probably has to do with we saw what this guy’s willing to do. I was a bloody mess, the family’s there, and so you’d be hard-pressed not to at least have a little respect for somebody when they do that. I mean, we see it all the time in sports and stuff. A guy could be a jerk on interviews and stuff like that all the time, but when he goes out and he’s an absolute warrior at what he does, it shows you how much it matters to him. So at the end of the day, you might hate the guy, but the performer, the guy that’s doing his art, you can’t help but at least have a little respect for that.”
As we sit here right now, you’re the Intercontinental Champion. What did that mean? Winning that at SummerSlam and in your hometown.
“Man, to your point earlier about the circumstances and all these things lining up to lead to one thing. Imagine none of this would have ever happened the way it did, without the injury and all these things. That’s why I say I don’t ever believe in coincidence anymore. Because, oh, it just happened to be that SummerSlam was in Minnesota this year. I just happened to have this trajectory that led me to my singles. There’s no way it was meant to be. I’m confident of that, but I’m also super grateful to a degree that I can hardly describe. It’s the little kid in me got to experience everything he ever wanted that day. A victory like that with your family ringside is almost indescribable, what that can do for you, the six-year-old or seven-year-old version of you that used to dream about this stuff at night, your goosebumps and tears in the ring, and importantly, you got to show your kids firsthand, up close and personal that you really can chase down and accomplish these things that you want.”
It was a beautiful moment when your family comes into the ring, and you got to celebrate that with them.
“Did you watch how my dad got in the ring that night? Oh man, it should be its own comedy hour. My favorite thing in the world, dude. I don’t know if they even got proper footage of it, but I was in tears laughing at that point. My dad is so great. My mom and dad are the most supportive people. They’re the greatest, they raised me great. They gave me every opportunity, full support. Invite them in the ring. I mean, getting in and out of a wrestling ring if you’ve never done it before, it can be a challenge for those. My dad showed just what a challenge that could be. So I’ll just leave it at that. It’s pretty great.”
Is one of those goals you’re looking ahead to now that you want to be a world champion?
“Always. [Being] world champion is, I think, the standard goal. It should be for all of us, right? If you’re in this business and that’s not your goal, then I think you’re probably in the wrong business or your mind’s not in the right place. But my goals now have shifted a bit in general to just learn to embrace who I’m becoming while this stuff is going on, because what I found is that when I’m more concerned with the journey and this process and what it takes to kind of reach those goals, the goals take care of themselves, is what I’ve found. As long as you’re more concerned with doing the work now, today, and kind of like investing in your personal bank account, in your work ethic, whatever you want to call it, to get there. Before you know it, you just end up there, but that comes through the process. So now I’m more process-driven, ambition-driven. Let me just enjoy this journey because when you look back, I do feel like, at least it’s been my personal experience that, of all the things, whether it’s the Olympics or like state championships, rarely do you remember the actual achievement itself or the moment. I’m becoming far more familiar with my memories of the things that happened on the way to get there, and the relationships, the memories, and that kind of stuff. I think it’s probably just part of getting older and realizing what’s important and the stuff that really mattered. I mean, a gold medal, these things, they fade away, but like these relationships and the lessons you learn and kind of the wisdom you acquire on the way, that stuff doesn’t fade, and that’s the stuff of legacy. That’s the stuff I need to pass on to my kids and things like that. So that’s what’s becoming more important to me.”
What was the match before 2026 that you hung your hat on? What was your favorite match up to that point?
“Ooh, that’s so hard. I think the thing that probably changed my trajectory in the biggest way was the stuff I did with Gunther as a singles guy. I had still up until that point really, really probably still been associated with tag team stuff, and I was so hungry to break through as a singles guy, and I gone through a big debt of gratitude for that. He put on some great matches with me. He was one of those guys that I consider a dance partner that was just meant to be right. There’s certain guys that you get in there with, and it’s like, yeah, we were supposed to do this from a long time ago. I’ve had a few guys like that. He’s one of them, and so I think that whole story with him was kind of a breakthrough for me as a singles guy. It opened a lot of people’s eyes to say yeah, he can do more than just be a tag team champion. Took a long time after that to get to this point, but I think that was the beginning.”
Everybody wanted you to beat him for the Intercontinental Championship.
“Yeah, me too.”
Was there ever talk of it happening?
“Not to me. I mean, it’s another one of those things you think about, like nothing now would have meant what it did if I had won it then. Who’s to say what would have been better? Nobody knows. I’m creatively and professionally as fulfilled now as I’ve ever been. So maybe that was just fuel to the fire. Maybe that was just part of this whole arc that was really meant to be.”
You talk about the chemistry you had with Gunther. The chemistry you have with Penta is unbelievable. It’s like you guys have known each other your whole lives or something.
“Yeah, another one of those dance partners that I just got lucky with, Penta, man, could talk all day about his wrestling, but he’s just the greatest human being. What an incredible human being! From the moment I met him, we clicked, we hit it off great, but I don’t want to say that that’s unique to me because Penta hits it off great with everybody. He’s just that kind of person. He’s so affable and just a joy to be around. He’s always got a smile on his face. He’s so funny, and just like the most effortlessly cool guy you’ve ever met. Just cool, and fortunately enough, we are great dance partners as well.”
I saw that Seth Rollins recently posted that it’s been amazing watching you become one of the best wrestlers in the world. How did you feel when you saw that?
“So the level of humility that I get from a comment like that from one of my peers, it’s next level. It humbles me to a degree that I don’t know you could have ever told me that I’d be having these things said about me by peers that I respect at that level, and I would have believed you. I don’t think so, but it’s happening, and it’s super cool because people like Seth, they don’t blow smoke. They don’t just say stuff like that. So when he said that, and he actually said it to me in Mexico personally before that, I had to stop myself from tearing up a little bit, and I also got goosebumps, and I didn’t know what to say to him. I just said, ‘Hey, man, I don’t know what to say, but thank you.’ Because it’s rewarding, but it’s also gratifying in a sense to know that I’ve done the right thing throughout my whole career. I never gave up. I never phoned it in. I never walked away. There were times, trust me, where I wanted to. I had conversations with my dad and stuff about, and then specifically during the Shorty G era and stuff.”
About leaving wrestling?
“Just about am I doing the right thing? I don’t know. Am I approaching this the right way? Not about leaving wrestling, but questioning myself, wondering if I’m approaching the career in the right way. I don’t like questioning myself. I want to be sure that at least the approach is right, and I had doubts, but when I hear stuff like that from Seth, it lets me know you did things the right way.”
This is a new Chad Gable we’re getting now with a whole new entrance, new entrance theme. What’s the idea behind this hard rock entrance theme?
“You just got to do what you feel. You got to do what you love. So the way I even decorate my gym, the way I decorate the interior of my house, I don’t put a bunch of motivational quotes and crap in here that doesn’t do anything for me these days. The stuff that does stuff for me is what resonates with me personally. So that’s the kind of stuff I curate, and that’s with my entrance, with my music, all this stuff. I feel it. I feel this stuff, and that’s important because if I feel it, then people are gonna feel it. If I don’t, people sniff that out immediately. If you’re forcing something or faking something, people are gonna go, ‘That ain’t him.’ But trust me, I feel that. I feel that music, baby. I want to change my tron a little bit. That’s the only thing we need to change. I mean, I got like this vision of like this ’80s vibe. Maybe part of it’s training. Maybe part of it’s I’m riding in a Corvette with the top down, in a Miami Vice type. I don’t know what it is, but there’s the whole package is coming together very soon.”
You recently wrestled Rey Mysterio. Rey’s in his 50s and he hasn’t slowed down. It’s unbelievable. He’s wrestling like WCW Rey Mysterio.
“It’s bad when you’re going out there against a guy that’s been doing it that long, and you’re thinking man, I hope I can keep up with him because I know how good he still is.”
What is Chad Gable grateful for?
“The bible, perspective, and wisdom.”
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