How Did A C-Tier WWE Guy From Germany Become One Of The Most Popular Luchadores In Mexico?

The crowd at Arena Monterrey belted “Cielito Lindo,” and the mariachi band played the hero to the ring. The match was mask vs. mask, each luchador putting their identity on the line, and the fans were unanimous in their loyalty. They gave him more love than you’ll see for any active wrestler in Mexico not named Mistico. Absorbing all the cheers and adulation from the crowd was … a German guy named Marcel Barthel, better known as WWE bit player Ludwig Kaiser, who was portraying the masked man known as “El Grande Americano.”

Let’s go backward. There’s a high-stakes wrestling war happening in Mexico, pitting longstanding tradition against WWE’s corporate might. CMLL is the oldest promotion in the world, with regular shows at Arena Mexico that are a must-see for any tourist interested in the platonic ideal of lucha libre. They’ve had an especially strong run of late, with attendance figures that did not escape the notice of America’s largest wrestling behemoth. In 2025, WWE bought CMLL’s little-brother rival, AAA, and started supplying it with bigger-name talents.

AAA, which broke away from CMLL in the early ’90s, had mostly been a dysfunctional garbage promotion in the 2020s, so for as frustrating as WWE’s world-domination plans are for supporters of global wrestling, their money actually lifted it into something pretty good, which fans could easily watch for free on Youtube. AAA leans much more heavily into WWE-style gimmickry than tried-and-true CMLL would ever dare, so the contrast makes the rivalry that much more exciting. Eventually, there’s going to have to be a winner, and I hope it’s not WWE/AAA, but for the moment both promotions have been able to deliver enjoyable shows.

A side effect of WWE buying AAA, however, is that its fans didn’t want to feel like they were cheering for an American corporate takeover. As the promotion made drastic changes to the roster, the crowd rebelled against those they saw as the bosses’ favorites and cheered for the bad guys they thought they were meant to boo. It developed into an odd reverse-reverse-psychology situation. The company got hip to what the fans were doing. The fans, I think, got hip to the fact that the company got hip. But by that point, everyone was having too much fun to care anymore. It’s in that kind of environment that a character like “El Grande Americano” can rise to the role of beloved hero.

Originally a hacky joke meant to make the wrestler Chad Gable an easy heel for Mexican audiences, the Grande Americano mantle was inherited by Kaiser when Gable suffered an injury last year, and from there it took on a life of its own. Kaiser had previously worked as a vaguely fascist-coded flunky in the WWE stable Imperium, but he was pretty clearly on his way to being released. There was nothing in his past that suggested he could perform as a flamboyant lucha libre persona, but under the mask, it was like he became a different person. Suave and magnetic, Kaiser transcended the inherent stupidity of the gimmick to achieve a very, very unlikely stardom. His success set up an obvious money match: El Grande Americano vs. a returning Gable as “The Original El Grande Americano,” putting up his mask as a villain against the newly minted good guy.

In WWE, Gable vs. Kaiser would be a five-minute nothing match in the first hour of a television show. Fans appreciate Gable for his work, but as a storyline threat he never recovered from Vince McMahon’s campaign to humiliate him for being short. Kaiser, meanwhile, was always mere secondary support for Imperium wrestler Gunther during his WWE ascendence, and once Gunther became a world champion, Kaiser’s role became obsolete.

In AAA, however, El Grande Americano vs. The Original El Grande Americano was an absolute epic. What looked on paper like two outsiders in jokey gimmicks cosplaying a lucha libre tradition took on in reality all the genuinely moving aspects of mask vs. mask pageantry in Mexico. It was a long, bloody struggle between an idol and a bastard, with the crowd fully invested in every move.

Watching the action play out, I was reminded of the classic “Invisible Man vs. Invisible Stan” independent match from 2019, in which fans went wild for two competitors who did not actually exist. In both matches, a wrestling audience treated a stupid premise with total sincerity, and in doing so elevated it into something legendary. In this case, though, it wasn’t just referee Bryce Remsburg performing for the crowd, pretending he could see Man and Stan. Kaiser and Gable put on the match of their lives, imbuing each minute of the half-hour bout with drama while making you feel the sweat pouring off their bodies.

It ended the way it was supposed to, and then, somehow, even the ceremonial unmasking felt indistinguishable from a classic lucha de apuestas climax. Even though everybody already knew it was Gable under the hood, and that he was not surrendering anything more precious than a half-assed gag he had already ceded to someone else, Gable revealed his red face with true cathartic passion. In response, he received cheers and chants of “Gracias Gable” from the Mexican crowd. The man who originated—this is the last time I even want to type the name—”El Grande Americano” had earned their respect.

I’m honestly kind of beside myself that I loved this match so much. I hate that WWE can’t stay in their own domain, and I dread the thought that an ailing Japanese scene might be next on their list. I’m rooting for the CMLL hot streak to continue for as long as it can, and I don’t want lucha libre to become dominated by the influence of the right-wing clowns that run the WWE/UFC monstrosity known as TKO. In that context, maybe Gable-Kaiser was a great match in service of a cynical long-term goal. But there’s nothing to loathe or deny about the way they captivated their audience on this particular night. Ultimately, it’s that audience, and no one else, that has the power to decide who becomes a star.