Gable Steveson is dipping his toes into as many different sporting avenues as he can.
While it takes a special athlete to compete in the Olympics, winning a gold medal is an entirely different story. Try accomplishing that feat at only 21 years old, which is exactly what Steveson did in the 2020 Games when he became the youngest to ever do so in men’s freestyle wrestling.
Unfortunately, Steveson, now 24, has been unable to lock down a consistent career since. The Olympic success initially led him down a similar path as his fellow Olympian Kurt Angle, who famously won gold in wrestling “with a broken frickin’ neck” before joining the WWE in the late 1990s. Steveson with WWE in 2021 and made a handful of appearances, but was released this past May.
Life, Steveson said, simply became too much of a juggling act.
“When I got to WWE, everything was great, and everything went great the whole time. It just wasn’t the right time,” Steveson said in a candid conversation on Uncrowned’s “The Ariel Helwani Show.”
“After I signed with WWE, I tried to go back to wrestle [in the amateurs], and you can’t consistently do one foot in, one foot out of everything. As later time had gone on, it just wasn’t the right thing and I wanted to keep wrestling and keep going in that direction. WWE had a different direction. Obviously, it’s no hard feelings, it’s never bad blood. I got to see Paul Levesque (Triple H) at the UFC (309) event and we had a brief convo and everything was very civil and very nice. It was great to see him and Stephanie (McMahon) backstage. Everything is good. There’s no hard feelings on my end.
“They knew at the time I wanted to keep being competitive and it was just a little bump in the road. It happens.”
Steveson’s brief run in WWE drew instant comparisons with Angle because of their backgrounds, but whether the company was trying to fashion him into the new Angle or he was always doomed to feel like a replica, fans let Steveson and WWE know their displeasure in his infamous July 2023 match against Baron Corbin at The Great American Bash. Add in the fact that Steveson did a lot of Angle’s moves, including his signature ankle lock, and the partnership just never gelled in the way many expected.
Despite the short stint and perceived lack of faith from WWE, Steveson has no ill will or regrets. If the opportunity presents itself again in the future, he’s left the door open on his end.
The day he found out about his release, it came as a shock, but then it was right back to practice.
“If the opportunity definitely came around in the future, I would love to put both feet back in and take off and go run with it,” Steveson said. “I would love that, but business is always going to be business. You gotta take risk in your life and some of the risks don’t work, and that one just didn’t work, and there’s no problems with me. I’m hands off and time will always come back around, hopefully.
“I don’t regret anything. I don’t regret going down that path.”
The NFL was Steveson’s next venture. The Olympic champ signed with the Buffalo Bills this past May in an attempt to try his hand on the gridiron as a nose tackle. It was Steveson’s first foray into playing any kind of organized football in his entire life, and he enjoyed the experience immensely. He said he felt as if he was just finding his rhythm when he was released in August following Buffalo’s first preseason game.
Between the WWE and NFL releases, each had “a certain sting to them,” Steveson admitted.
“Of course there’s going to be disappointment,” he said. “I feel like I could have done so much more in the business and I could have lasted a really long time, but like I said, business is always going to be business. Business doesn’t stop for anyone, and it’s not going to stop for me — especially even if I’m the Olympic champion. So there’s no problem with it, I’m good to go. I’m going through college wrestling again and restarting everything and getting back to where I was.”
As Steveson alluded to, what’s next for him is a return to the Minnesota Golden Gophers collegiate wrestling team, where he’ll look to pick back up a dominant reign of success on the mats using the extra year of eligibility that was was granted to him in 2020 due to the circumstances surrounding the COVID-19 pandemic. Steveson last competed in the NCAA Division I ranks during the 2021-22 season but remains one of the most decorated wrestlers in the history of the University of Minnesota.
Steveson made his successful collegiate return Sunday with a dominant tech fall victory over Campbell University’s Taye Ghadiali.
However, Steveson recently made another cameo, this time in the MMA world. He served as part of the UFC 309 training camp for heavyweight champion Jon Jones, who fought and defeated Stipe Miocic.
Steveson and Jones have known each other for the past few years after connecting on social media. He wasn’t a major part of Jones’ preparation for the Miocic fight, but Steveson still stopped through Albuquerque for a couple of weeks at a time between school requirements in Minnesota.
Working alongside an all-time great like Jones is arguably the perfect situation for a blue-chip athlete to dip their toes into the MMA waters. If Steveson gets the opportunity to do it again, he’ll jump at it.
“I would hope he consistently picks me,” Steveson said of Jones. “He’s got a great foundation going on [with his team] already so no hard feelings if he doesn’t, but that’s my guy. I would love to.
“Before the fight, I’m sitting down in the stands near his family and he’s in the back with all his team and I’m just sitting watching, waiting for greatness.”
Steveson is still a newcomer to the striking elements of MMA but got his first licks in courtesy of Jones.
Following a third-round spinning back kick knockout of Miocic, Jones shared a story in UFC 309’s post-fight press conference detailing the day Steveson took a knee strike from the heavyweight champ.
“Taking a knee is crazy,” Steveson said. “Everybody knows taking a knee is crazy, especially from Jon Jones. We were just wrestling around and I went to take a shot, and just the reaction time that he had, especially at the age that he is, is just fascinating. I’ve never seen it from any other guy. I wrestled Brock Lesnar a few years ago and Jon was just so much different, and when I took that shot and took that knee, I was like, ‘Oh, this is what it feels like to get hit.’
“Obviously it hurts, you know that, but just my first real hit is getting kneed in the face and it goes on ESPN, which is kind of funny.”
After Steveson won his gold medal, pro wrestling and MMA were assumed to be his most logical next steps if he planned to actually pivot away from amateur wrestling and competing in the Olympics.
Pro wrestling has already been checked off the list — for now.
But a whole new world still awaits in MMA, and the heavyweight isn’t at all opposed to a visit.
“I’ve dipped and dabbed in MMA for a while now,” Steveson said. “After being in that camp with Jon Jones, that definitely put a major spark in me to go out there and do MMA. Not sure the promotion yet but Jon definitely lit a fire under me and was like, ‘Hey, I think you should go back to wrestling. I think you should try MMA. We got a great team here in Albuquerque if you want to join us.’ And it was just fascinating how I got into something so quick. When I put on the gloves, it felt like home base. With the wrestling and the boxing work, jiu-jitsu, I felt like I got to be very good very quick.
“I do not have an MMA fight [planned]. I do have a path that can lead me to somewhere great, and so we are discussing it and I think it will be a really good path for me to get out there and showcase who I am. I’m going to take some time and make sure everything’s 100 percent ready, and make sure that I am physically capable of being who I am, which I know I am. You just know it’s going to take time like every other thing.”
