WWE reportedly signed a contract with Olympic Gold Medal-winning heavyweight wrestler Gable Steveson on 4 September 2021.
A couple of days ago, Olympics Gold Medalist Gable Steveson teased on social media that he signed a contract with the company, but he didn't reveal the company name. Many fans were curious about where he signed a contract. The post mentions,
Just put the pen to paper…
Dave Meltzer of F4Wonline mentioned that Steveson's next destination would reportedly be WWE. There were no additional details about the signing kept in public. It is not fixed when will be Steveson will join the company. Gable Steveson is thinking about signing with the WWE as he has been interested in WWE since his childhood days, as rumored.
WWE and Steveson were in contact with each other before the Olympics. He was invited as a guest in WWE SummerSlam last month after his performance at the Games. Also, another Olympic gold medal Tamyra Mensah-Stock was there to see WWE SummerSlam. Mensah-Stock and Steveson would be long-listed accomplished amateur wrestlers to join WWE.
Kurt Angle has won the gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics and is also one of the greatest WWE superstars of all time. Another linked to WWE is that his older brother Bobby Steveson is also signed the contract a week earlier.
However, he has wanted to explore WWE and has already claimed that he would like to be the next big WWE Superstar.
“Vince McMahon is a great dude. Triple H is a great person. So, for me to not explore WWE would be very fairly stupid on my part.”
WWE has many options for Gable Steveson, from bringing him up slowly through the developmental system as a singles wrestler or tag team wrestler with his brother to put him on the main roster immediately capitalize on his popularity.
Regardless of how WWE utilizes Steveson, it could have one of the fastest-rising stars in professional wrestling on its hands already.
WWE Superstar Seth Rollins spoke with TMZ Sports at LAX in Los Angeles said WWE would love to have Gable Steveson on the roster. Moreover, he would personally love to train the athlete if the opportunity is given,
“I mean, we’d love to have him. He seems like an incredible athlete, and decent dude. And, you know, we’ve had some luck with Olympic gold medalists before, so why not?”
Having trained with Lesnar and admired Reigns from afar, he is curious to see what happens next in the storyline. “It’s always cool seeing Roman Reigns go out there,” Steveson said. “I watch Roman close. Roman is once-in-a-lifetime too, how he talks, his look, everything about him is really, really good, and having Paul Heyman back him."
Steveson wants to face Roman Reigns. According to him, Roman Reigns is at the top wrestler and the roster. Therefore, he wants to meet Head-to-Head at WWE.
First Time Meeting With Broke Lesner Scare Gable Steveson
In the world of heavyweight wrestling, Gable Steveson is the man right now.
However, three years ago, he ran into another great wrestler, and he was astonished.
Compared to fellow Minnesota Golden Gopher great Broke Lesner, who also signed with the WWE before he signed MMA, Steveson counts Lesner as one of his companions or mentors. He remembers his first encounter with Broke Lesner during a recent appearance on The MMA Hour.
Steveson said:
“I was scared as hell of him. The dude came up, and he’s about 6-3, 6-4, he’s put together, and he was ripped. I was like, and he’s bigger than I thought; this was the first time I’d seen him in person. But honestly, it’s cool to have that mentor, that role model in my life, and have him do everything that I want to do in such a dominating fashion. It’s cool because he can tell me how he did it and things I can do better. But when I first saw him, I was like, come on now. You want me to wrestle you right now? But as the time went on and we got closer and got cooler, it was just an easier factor now.”
While training with Lesner has excellent help to Steveson, the former UFC champion also provides many careers advice. Lesnar is one of the most successful combat sports athletes in history, winning an NCAA Division I wrestling championship in 2000 and becoming a headlining act for the WWE just two years later. He transitioned to MMA in 2007 and became UFC champion in his fourth pro bout.
After getting to know Lesner, they both become close friends as well as mentors. Lesner suggested one primary pointer for Steveson, and that was cutting his hair so that his hair would get him trouble during a match.
Steveson didn’t forget Lesnar’s words of wisdom, and he offered his own when Lesnar made a drastic debut return in WWE, changing his different looks.
Growing up, Steveson says he enjoyed watching WWE and UFC equally as he fascinates watching their gameplay Lesnar, Anderson Silva, Georges St-Pierre, Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, and Tito Ortiz. Although he was determined to carve his path, he could also follow Broke Lesner's footsteps.
Gable Steveson Olympic Career
The U.S. wrestler and U of M Gopher Gable Steveson took home the gold medal in the final men's freestyle 125kg wrestling match of the Summer Tokyo Olympics.
Gable Steveson, 21, scored two points in the final seconds to take a 10-8 victory over Geno Petriashvili from Georgia. Petriashvili won the past three world championships and was the first wrestler to score a point against Steveson at the Olympic games. Steveson is the first wrestler on the Gophers to win an Olympic gold medal.
“I looked at the clock and it was like 0.3,” Steveson said. “And I was like, ‘Ain’t no way.’ And my head just like flushed with everything. And I was like, ‘Wow.’ ”
Georgia challenged the final point with no help. Steveson gained a point on the challenge, giving him five points in 10 seconds.
Steveson, an NCAA champion from the University of Minnesota who aspirations to join World Wrestling Entertainment, then played to the limited crowd. He walked around the mat with the U.S. flag draped over his shoulders, then overpowered with the backflip he saves for his most significant victories.
It looked as if Steveson might have another easy day. He outscored his opponents 23-0 in the first three rounds and dominated 2016 Olympic gold medalist Taha Akgul 8-0 in the quarterfinals.
Things got much more difficult in the final. Petriashvili, the No. 1 seed, is the three-time reigning world champion who was an Olympic bronze medalist in 2016.
Steveson led the final 5-2 before Petriashvili scored six points with essentially one move getting a single-leg takedown, then adding four back points with two gut wrenches to go up 8-5.
With the pressure on, Steveson came up with a plan to get the points he needed. So it makes sense that he came through. He was named for American Dan Gable, the 1972 Olympic gold medalist known as one of the U.S.’s best wrestlers and wrestling coaches of all time.
Now, Steveson can decide to choose what was his next move.
He could return to school for his senior season and cash in on the NCAA rules changes regarding name, image, and likeness. Steveson was the unbeaten heavyweight champion at the NCAA Championships for the Gophers this past season and shared the Dan Hodge Trophy as the nation’s best college wrestler. He already has some deals in place.
Steveson isn’t ready to look ahead yet, saying he’s “living in my moment.” Instead, he said he’d return home to Minnesota and decompress before making decisions.
“There’s a lot of possibilities for me with this gold medal,” he said. “A lot of doors opened after me winning a national title, and now the whole world is open for me to see after this Olympic gold medal.”
Steveson earned $250,000 from the U.S. wrestling federation for claiming the gold medal.
Akgul bounced back from his loss to Steveson to defeat Mongolia’s Lkhagvagerel Munkhtur 5-0 in a bronze-medal match at 125kg.
“I came here for back-to-back gold medals after Rio, but I had to settle for bronze,” Akgul said. “I did my best, I think I was unlucky in the quarterfinals, but that can happen. An Olympic medal is still important and valuable.”
Gable Steveson Parents Detail
Olympic gold medal winner Gable Steveson was born on 31 May 2000, held in Apple Valley, Minnesota, U.S. Gable Steveson was born to parent Robert Steveson and Laticia Steveson. His father is a wrestler, and his mother is a swimmer. Morning shows the day, as his parents were athletics, so he has been athletics since earlier days.
Gable Steveson's older brothers John and Bobby were also wrestlers. Gable Steveson's ethnicity is mixed as his father is white and his mother is African-American. Gable holds American citizens.
Gable Steveson completes his school education at Apple Valley High School. He got a degree in education at the University of Minnesota.
Gable Steveson Early Life and High School Details
Gable Steveson's mother, Laticia, jokes he was born on the wrestling mat and would become a great wrestler. Gable's career starts in Portage, Indiana, where he was wrestling for the first time. His older brother John and Bobby already made his wrestling career at the top, so it makes sense that Gable will follow in his older brother's footsteps.
“I always got really frustrated wrestling with Bobby, just being younger and having to battle with him all the time,” Steveson said. “But having older brothers who had wrestled and had experience really allowed me to get better at wrestling during that time.”
It wasn't just winning the local tournament that Gable was winning, either. Gable also won the most prestigious youth tournament, such as Tulsa Nationals or USA Folkstyle Nationals, and even won a gold medal from the contest.
During Gable's seventh standard, his parents moved to Minnesota, a passage that meant Gable and his older brother Bobby would be wrestling for Apple Valley. This high school wrestling powerhouse was known for producing high-level talent.
“I never won in the practice room during my first two years at Apple Valley.”
The high school team that produced talents like Seth Gross, Mark Hall, and of course, the Steveson's dominated the high school wrestling scene, and Gable has an opportunity to dominate eight-grader at 195 pounds.
Everything was perfect for Steveson that year, becoming the top class wrestler in his weight class at just 13 years old. He had a 39-2 record when he reached the state finals. But then, Steveson ran into Alexandria’s Justin Cumberbatch.
“I knew I could beat that dude. Just didn’t do it that day.”
But he lost the match on the stages, center mat at the Xcel Energy Center. Steveson dropped a 6-1 score against Justin Cumberbatch. It was a setback for Steveson.
“That loss was definitely the turning point for me, just because it was my first loss in front of that many people,” Steveson recalls. “I thought I could never lose, so after that match, I knew it was time to pick it up a little bit.”
From that match, Gable keeps on winning 171 straight games and four state titles. His final two state championships lasted a combined 28 seconds.
Steveson also won three world championships, two cadet titles, and one junior title, helping Gable realize that his true potential could go higher than the college level.
“Going over there and winning those titles proved that I could go overseas and compete, and a lot of those guys are still doing well at the senior level right now, so I know I’m right there,” Steveson said.
With all the success Gable earned during his high school career, he was the top pound-for-pound prospect heading into his recruiting season, with Minnesota and Iowa at the top of his list.
Family Reaction Over Winning Olympics Gold Medal
Gable Steveson's family and friends went wild after defeating his final Georgia opponent in the freestyle heavyweight final at Tokyo 2020 to win his first Olympic gold.
At home, Steveson's family and friends watched the footage from Minnesota, where NBC affiliate KARE 11 was covering his family's reaction in the final.
Mr. Steveson’s mother and University of Minnesota teammates could be seen on the edge of their seats In the final seconds before the sounding of the buzzer as his opponent hit the floor.
The video showed them going wild and punching the air. Others screamed “Oh my god” and “he did it” and hugging one another.