Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson expects to be featured on WWE TV soon.
Steveson remains under contract to WWE, but he’s now focused on making the 2024 Olympics in Paris. He recently spoke with Cliff Brunt of The Associated Press and said while he achieved his longtime dream of joining WWE, he never lost his desire to entertain on the amateur mat.
After winning gold at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo, and winning two college national titles for the University of Minnesota, Steveson indicated he was retiring. He appeared at WWE SummerSlam 2021, then signed a multi-year contract the following month, and the month after that he was picked up by RAW in the WWE Draft. Steveson made a few more appearances for WWE, but has not been included in a Draft or any significant creative plans since then, and has kept his foot in the amateur door. Steveson has split his time between training in Minneapolis with Brandon Eggum, his college coach at the University of Minnesota, and the WWE Performance Center in Orlando. While still signed o WWE, the urge to try to position himself as one of amateur wrestling’s all-time greats became too much and now Steveson is chasing a spot at the 2024 Olympics in Paris.
“The itch and fire will never go away,” Steveson said. “And I feel like if you ask any competitor, old or young, I think it’s always there. But some people just don’t have the bodies to do it because they’re a little older. But I think me just turning 23, I still had that extra fire and I want to see what I could do. I wanted to test my limits. And so I stayed ready just in case the time came where I could come back.”
Steveson, a showman known for his back-flips after his biggest wins, says he felt like he didn’t get the full Olympic experience in Tokyo as crowds were limited due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Now he wants to provide that experience for his fans and his family.
“I need to have that Paris experience in front of a packed house,” he said. “I need to have them see what it’s like to see Gable Steveson in person. Having been in Tokyo and having no fans was — it was okay because I still won an Olympic gold. But I want to have that experience of having my family in the front row. They need to see it live.”
Steveson returned to amateur action at the U.S. Open in April and dominated some of the nation’s best heavyweight wrestlers by a combined score of 44-1. The performance earned him a spot at Final X Saturday, against Mason Parris. Steveson beat Parris for the NCAA title in 2021 and defeated him 11-1 in the U.S. Open semifinals. The winner of each Final X best-of-three championship series will represent the United States at the 2023 Senior World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
Steveson said fans will see the best version of him yet.
“I think body maturity is coming into play,” he said. “And I think now it’s at a stage where I have seen my true physical strength and my true physical attributes and everything is coming to light. I think now that this is a different person again, with things that people have not seen.”
Steveson said he expects to be seen on WWE TV soon, but he would not say when. He said the training process to become a pro wrestler takes longer than critics realize.
“I am still doing my thing,” he said. “I have changed my diet, my body appearance. I wanted to be the best thing ever so when I did go on TV, it was going to be a sight that nobody has seen before. My time is coming and it’s coming sooner than a lot of people think.”
Eggum also believes Steveson’s future with WWE remains bright.
“He’ll do great and he’ll be a star there, no question about it,” Eggum said. “But I also knew that leaving the world of competing and going out and showing the people what he’s capable of doing on the mat, that would be something that wouldn’t be very easy for him as well. So when the opportunity came back … I guess I wasn’t super surprised by that.”
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