Olympic champion Gable Steveson had plenty of options after capturing his gold medal back in 2021 and that hasn’t changed much as he returns to college for his final year of eligibility at the University of Minnesota.
Following a stint with WWE and playing football for the first time in his life with the Buffalo Bills during the NFL pre-season, the now 24-year-old phenom also popped up recently as one of the main training partners helping Jon Jones get ready for his recent win over Stipe Miocic at UFC 309. While fighting has always been something Steveson expected to explore in the future, working alongside arguably the greatest of all-time has effectively sealed the deal.
“I do have goals in mind,” Steveson said when speaking to MMA Fighting. “I would love to go to L.A. in 2028. Winning the Olympics in America would be such a big thing, especially having it in L.A. with magnitude of what L.A. is. That’s definitely a big part of why I came back to wrestle. Also, I think a lot of doors are still open. I went to the Buffalo Bills and after that I had a few teams reach out about putting me on their practice squad and that definitely kept me into football, too. But also the door of MMA is slowly starting to open up.
“As I put the gloves on, I really like the feeling of going out there and mixing everything together from wrestling to boxing to kickboxing to jiu-jitsu and putting all the pieces together in one. That definitely put a huge spark in me to do MMA, too. Wherever the path leads me to after this wrestling season is going to be great regardless but the MMA thing, when I tell you it definitely lit a fire under me. Being in that camp definitely put a big, big gas light and lit it really hard and burned the fumes in me.”
Gable Steveson says training with Jon Jones ‘definitely lit a fire’ to make the move to MMA - MMA Fighting
