WWE Hall of Famer JBL believes Chad Gable has developed into one of the very best wrestlers in the world—and says WWE should capitalize by putting the Intercontinental Championship on him at SummerSlam.
Speaking while filling in as host on Something to Wrestle, JBL said he’s pleased to see others beginning to recognize Gable’s rise. “I love the fact that everybody’s coming around to what I said the day after the show. I’ve thought Chad was the best wrestler in the world for some time, or at least one of them,” JBL said.
JBL explained that Gable’s talent was never in question, but he believes his run in AAA helped him reach another level as a performer.
“I know I was in one of the creative meetings, we were talking about Chad Gable, and Chad’s a fantastic athlete. He’s very smart. He’s a lot like Kurt Angle. These guys who can do comedy, do all this different stuff. He can do all that,” JBL said. “But the one thing we discussed was, look, it’s easy when you’re in the Alpha Academy or whatever the little gimmick skit thing he was in to get heat, as in, okay, we’re gonna do something campy and get booed. That’s pretty easy to do. As to go down to Mexico and get real heat, where people want to kill you when you’re coming out of the arena, that’s not even the same business. And Chad, when he came down there, he figured it out.”
JBL said Gable’s first match with LA Park convinced him the former Olympian had unlocked a new level of confidence.
“I’ve told the story before. When he had the first match with LA Park, that was the first time I saw this guy has got it figured out. He worked a heel match where he worked the leg, worked the leg, worked the leg, and finally goes over. It was a fantastic match, one of the best I’d ever seen him work,” JBL said. “Then he comes back and he’s the maestro for this mask versus mask match, which I thought was just absolutely fantastic. You look at Chad just orchestrating every single thing around him. It’s unbelievable. It’s incredible what he’s doing.”
Gable has previously credited The Undertaker with helping him stop overthinking his performances, and JBL agreed that advice played an important role—while emphasizing Gable still had to execute it himself.
“Yeah, I think Undertaker is a big part of that. And so is Jeremy Borash, realizing what you need to tell him to let him do it. But he still has to do it,” JBL said. “Undertaker could have told 100 different wrestlers the same thing. Ninety-nine of them couldn’t have done what Chad Gable did. It takes the two of those guys to be able to do that.”
JBL likened Gable’s current momentum to Steve Austin’s rise following the iconic “Austin 3:16” promo, saying WWE suddenly finds itself with a star it didn’t necessarily expect to become this hot so quickly.
“It’s the same thing that happened with Stone Cold. All of a sudden he does this Austin 3:16. They weren’t planning on using him that much. They didn’t have something for him. He was kind of a fill in to get in there, and the story’s been told many times. They’re punishing Triple H, and all of a sudden Austin gets put in that spot,” JBL said. “You have this incredible promo that’s cut on the fly, because Michael Hayes had buzzed him saying, hey, Jake Roberts just cut a religious promo on you. And all of a sudden Steve goes out there and cuts this promo, and now you got this really hot commodity. We didn’t have plans for it, so it takes a while to figure out. Okay, wait a minute, we got to figure out what to do, and you don’t want to take a misstep.”
He believes WWE should be careful not to cool Gable’s momentum.
“You don’t want to put, like say Stone Cold back in the day, something out there and douse the fire that’s starting to burn. Same thing with Chad. All of a sudden they end up with this freaking commodity that’s just unbelievable,” JBL said. “You don’t want to misstep. You don’t want to put him out there and do something that kills that fire. You want to do something that’ll build it. So I think they’ll figure it out. They’ve got an unbelievable commodity here, and they figured it out with Steve. Steve all of a sudden becomes this guy that any building in the world you put his name on, he sold it out. Does Chad get to that level? Look, I have no idea. There are only about one or two people in history of the business have gotten to that level. But are they going to find something for him? Sometimes it takes a while when a gift is thrown into your lap to figure out what to do with it.”
With Gable set to challenge Penta for the Intercontinental Championship at SummerSlam, JBL didn’t hesitate when asked whether WWE should make the title change.
“If that’s where you’re going with him, yeah, I’d put the title on him. Not any doubt in my mind, unless they have some idea of where they want to go with him next,” JBL said. “Sometimes the route to get there is not, you got to be careful not to book like a fan. I always say, if you want to kill a territory, let the fans book it, because they just put the good guys over.”
Even so, JBL believes the timing feels right.
“I don’t know if this is the spot. To me, it feels like the spot where you put Chad Gable over and start this big nice run with him. He is such an incredible worker, and guys like this only come along once or twice a generation,” JBL said. “Chad’s figured it out. Maybe that run down in Mexico with Undertaker is what got him to that next level. I don’t know, but he’s there, and you got to figure out now what to do with him.”
JBL also had glowing words for reigning Intercontinental Champion Penta, predicting the popular star could soon move into WWE’s world title picture.
“I think the world title picture is probably where he would head. He’s so popular right now. Everybody dressing like him, the people doing all his symbols and all the things that he does. Penta is incredibly over,” JBL said.
Finally, JBL rejected the idea that the Intercontinental Championship is simply a secondary “workhorse” title, arguing that its importance has always depended on the champion and the story being told.
“The Intercontinental title at times was the working man’s title, but it was also at times a main event title. You would run, when you’re running two shows a night, you’d have the Intercontinental Champion on one show, you’d have the World Championship on the other show,” JBL said. “So it all depends who holds it and the storyline that gets you to it. Sometimes it’s an absolute featured title as much as the world title, and sometimes it’s kind of a throwaway, where you don’t really pay attention to it. So it all depends on who has it and the storyline that got them there.”
