Though it didn't come with some grand gesture or a redemption arc of legendary proportions, Chad Gable has quietly but steadily become one of the top babyfaces on the RAW brand through his back-and-forth program with Gunther and even after failing to capture the Intercontinental Championship before the “Ring General” could set the all-time record for days with the title, though that doesn't mean he's slowing down his pursuits any time soon.
Sitting down for an interview with Corey Graves and Kevin Patrick on After The Bell, the “Master” of Alpha Academy explained to the WWE Universe the challenge of going from a long-time heel to a sympathetic babyface and how, thanks to none other than Paul “Triple H” Levesque, he was able to make it work exceptionally well.
“I had the longest talk I think I may have ever had with Hunter [Paul “Triple H” Levesque] that night,” Chad Gable said via TJR. “And he just explained to me over and over that we found this character, this kind of underdog babyface, and that term gets thrown around a lot, but I feel like I've gone through enough changes in character and tried enough things that this is who I am.”
Asked if there's a difference between working heel and working babyface in the ring, Gable acknowledged that there is, but Levesque helped him with that, too.
“Hunter talked to me about this as well. I had to shift my mindset. Working as a heel for so long got me in a certain mode. I've just learned to do less. To get sympathy, you just do less. People don't want to see an underdog babyface hitting 10,000 pretty moves and hitting 10,000 fancy dives, and flips, and suplexes all the time.”
“So you'll notice, I think, over the last couple of months as I've transitioned into this, it's just doing a lot less but doing it in very specific spots.”
Though it will be a bit of a bummer to see Gable tone back his in-ring heroics ever so slightly, as he was consistently putting on some of the best matches you will see for free on television during his time on RAW, if the rest of his babyface run is anything like the beginning with Gunther, the WWE Universe will soon be saying “Thank you!” to the “American Alpha.”
Chad Gable explains how his family surprised him on RAW.
Elsewhere on After The Bell, Chad Gable was asked about his family's ringside appearance for his IC Title match with Gunther on RAW and how it came together.
Though it may be hard for fans to believe, Gable didn't explicitly plan for his family to be front row for his match; it just sort of happened via a series of good luck and happy accidents.
“It just happened that my family was there. It wasn't like I said, ‘Let's get you guys front row and make this a big deal.' It was the last week before school, so I said, ‘Let's give them one last fun thing before the summer.' I don't request front-row tickets, I just get comps. They happened to sit there and get placed there. [WWE] didn't even know they were coming, they had no idea. When they found out about it, they said, ‘Let's take advantage of it' and film me during the day, but none of it was privy to them earlier in the week. I wasn't aware of where they were sitting until minutes before, my wife sent me a picture. I'll post of my little dude up front because he's wearing the singlet, and now he makes me get him a singlet every time I get one made. You can't really, even if you wanted to, force some kind of emotion out of a kid. That stuff is real,” Gable said via Fightful.
“My oldest daughter is by far the most emotional. They all have different personalities, but she's the one the world saw crying that night. She knows the deal. I've spoken to her about what daddy does and how it works. She knows, but even that doesn't matter. When you get there, and your kid is sitting in front of you, watching her dad get beat up, it's going to draw it out of them when she's emotional like that. My middle daughter, she couldn't care less. She was looking down to see how many nachos she had left. The emotion from my oldest daughter, we don't get often anymore. When it happens, naturally and organically, it means so much more. None of it was meant to be part of anything, that's what made it organic.”
Would Gable's third match against Gunther have been nearly as entertaining without his family in front of the ring? More likely than not, yes; Gable pulled out all of the stops for his match and truly left it all in the ring in the pursuit of singles gold. Still, adding the human element to the match turned an excellent effort into the start of something bigger, and the WWE Universe is better off for it.