Charles Edward "Chas" Betts (born March 8, 1986) is an American professional wrestler and former amateur wrestler who is signed to WWE under the ring name Chad Gable.
His career started in amateur wrestling, where he was the 2004 Minnesota high school state champion and managed to compete in the 2012 Summer Olympics, where he passed through the qualification round, but was eliminated pretty early. He signed a developmental contract with WWE's NXT brand, making his debut in September 2014. At the beginning of the next year, he entered a storyline with a fellow wrestler Jason Jordan, trying to convince him to become a tag team. As the result, American Alpha was born, with the duo capturing the NXT Tag Team Championships before being drafted to SmackDown and winning the SmackDown Tag Team Championship. In 2017, American Alpha disbanded after Jordan debuted on the Raw brand as the (kayfabe) son of Raw General Manager Kurt Angle, while Gable remained on SmackDown and teamed up with Shelton Benjamin, however, this partnership was less fruitful than Gable's previous one, with Gable being drafted to Raw the next year and forming yet another team with Bobby Roode, winning the Raw Tag Team Championship.
During the 2019 Superstar Shake-up, Gable was drafted to Smackdown, ending his team with Roode, and entered a feud with Baron Corbin, who managed to convince the announcers to shorten his name to "Shorty Gable" and eventually "Shorty G". This name change lasted for about a year, until he declared he's had enough of being Shorty G and took the name "Chad Gable" back. A few weeks later he opened a wrestling training school "Alpha Academy", taking on Otis as his first trainee. In 2021, Gable and Otis were drafted to Raw, where they managed to capture Raw Tag Team Championships in a match against RK-Bro, dropping them back after 8 weeks.
In 2023, Otis managed to recruit Maxxine Dupri to Alpha Academy, with Akira Tozawa joining later that year. During this time, Gable entered a feud with the Intercontinental Champion Gunther and his stable the Imperium, facing off against the Ring General for the title several times, but without any success. However, when his friend Sami Zayn earned a chance to face Gunther at WrestleMania XL for the title, he asked Gable to become his coach, with the result being Zayn winning the title. However, during an episode of Raw a week after WrestleMania in Montreal, Zayn and Gable would face each other for the title, with Zayn successfully retaining. After the match, however, after praising his opponent, Gable attacked Zayn in front of his family, turning heel in the process.
Shoosh! Chad Gable's Tropes:
- Always Second Best: The crux of his Face–Heel Turn in 2024. After failing to beat Gunther for the Intercontinental Championship made Gable sink into despair, while his friend Sami Zayn gained the opportunity to fight the Ring General at WrestleMania XL and asked Gable to train him. All the effort paid off, with Zayn winning the title, but a week after Gable failed to capture it and turned against Sami, attacking him in front of his family in an attempt to turn his fortunes around.
- Badass Native: He's a registered member of the Comanche Nation.
- Badass Teacher: His gimmick as the leader of Alpha Academy revolves around him helping his trainees improve their in-ring skills.
- Beware the Silly Ones: Much like Kurt Angle, Gable hides his monstrous wrestling skills under a goofy persona, unleashing it only when the bell rings.
- Captain Ersatz: American Alpha appeared to be a two-man love letter to Kurt Angle, with Gable representing the younger Angle from the Attitude Era—the dorky arrogant guy who's also somehow endearing or funny and yet still dangerous because he can out-grapple anyone at will, while his Face–Heel Turn in 2024 having shades of Angle's "Wrestling Machine" run in TNA. Bonus points for American Alpha also carrying similarities to a certain team of former Angle protégés, covered below.
- Composite Character:
- Gable is seemingly a composite of Kurt Angle and Charlie Haas, one of his former understudies. Like early Angle, Gable is a short, highly skilled amateur wrestler and Olympic competitor who wrestles in a singlet, and backstage is arrogant but with an air of goofiness about him, and like Haas, he's an accomplished technician in the ring.
- Outside the Angle-related comparisons, Gable's masterful mat technique, charming balance of nerdiness and badassery, and ability to be dangerous despite his diminutive size has also drawn comparisons to Bryan Danielson especially in his WWE run.
- Face–Heel Turn:
- During his run with Shelton Benjamin, he started to use more villainous tactics, later confirming the turn by accusing Daniel Bryan of being biased against them.
- His attack on Sami Zayn in front of his family after the unsuccessful attempt to win the Intercontinental Championship made Sami's hometown crowd turn against him quickly.
- Heel–Face Turn:
- Yes, Gable worked alongside Jordan as heels early on. However, fans loved them too much to boo them, and so they became cemented as faces through their gutsy performance in defeat against Baron Corbin and Rhyno in the semi-finals of the Dusty Rhodes Tag Team Classic tournament.
- During his storyline with Otis, after the two started receiving positive reactions while being crafty heels, they started to become more honorable in the ring, officially cementing themselves as the good guys.
- Power Stable: Alpha Academy
- Pint-Sized Powerhouse: Gable stands at only 5'7, but grapples and tosses around larger foes with ease. It's routinely noted, in fact, how unusually strong he is for being one of the smallest* guys on the roster, being able to deadlift such powerhouses as Ivar and Braun Strowman.
- Shout-Out: Gable's name is one to Dan Gable, the longtime head coach of the legendary Iowa Hawkeyes collegiate amateur wrestling team. Dan approves of this; he's done a short video with the "Ready, Willing and Gable" towel, and the two Gables have both been scheduled for an appearance together at an Iowa wrestling event in July 2017.
- Suplex Finisher: Oh yes. His primary finisher is Chaos Theory, an O'Connor roll transitioned into a bridging German suplex.
- Tag Team:
- American Alpha with Jason Jordan on NXT and SmackDown.
- With Shelton Benjamin on Raw.
- With Bobby Roode on Raw.
