Gable Steveson, a wrestling prodigy with an incredible amateur career and an Olympic Gold medal, seemed destined for greatness in WWE. But despite his remarkable talents and a high-profile signing, his WWE career didn't pan out as many had hoped, he was released from WWE and Triple H in 2023. So, what went wrong?
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00:00 He got on the WWE's radar in similar fashion to other collegiate wrestling greats who made
00:05 the leap successfully into the entertainment world of pro wrestling. He scored three straight
00:10 undefeated seasons with national championships to his name in the NCAA with the University of
00:16 Minnesota, the same wrestling team that produced Brock Lesnar. He won an Olympic gold medal for
00:22 the United States, just like Kurt Angle did before his Hall of Fame career in WWE.
00:27 Gable Steveson was the most anticipated pro athlete to join WWE in years, but his success
00:34 in WWE simply was not meant to be. So what exactly happened? This is Sportskeeda Wrestling,
00:40 I'm Kevin Kellum, let us know what you think of pro athletes making their leap into pro wrestling
00:46 in the comments below. Gable Steveson had all the things to attract the attention of WWE scouts
00:52 when he was becoming one of the most talked about collegiate athletes in the lead up to the Tokyo
00:57 Olympics. Along with his brother Bobby Stevenson, who is still wrestling with WWE currently,
01:02 he grew up a fan of pro wrestling, but took quickly to the legitimate sport of freestyle
01:08 wrestling. At a very young age, he was pinned as a future great in the mat game and would go to
01:14 deliver on that potential. The man was a freaking Olympic gold medalist in freestyle at the 2020
01:20 Olympics that took place in August of 2021. This followed a major career in the collegiate ranks
01:27 with the University of Minnesota. When he reached the pinnacle of amateur wrestling,
01:30 he was left with two major career choices that others have faced in the sport. A major possible
01:36 leap into pro wrestling with the WWE and a potential contract being offered, or entering
01:40 the world of MMA. Both were tantalizing. Being a fan of WWE from his childhood, he took Vince
01:46 McMahon and company's offer and signed one of the first lucrative next in line deals for college
01:52 athletes following his Olympic gold medal win. It appeared that WWE's vision for Gable Stevenson
01:58 was supposedly to make him like the next Kurt Angle. Or at least that was the perception.
02:03 The path had already been set. The expectations were built in. We've seen the Kurt Angle comparisons
02:08 time and time again. WWE has been no stranger at converting amateur athletes into prime time
02:14 ready pro wrestling stars since Angle's emergence. Dolph Ziggler, who was a standout collegiate
02:20 wrestler with Kent State, he became a show stealer for them for nearly 20 years. Bianca Belair,
02:27 who has become a WrestleMania main eventer and world champion, came to WWE NXT after years in
02:34 track and field competitions. Still, Kurt Angle is the greatest example of a legitimate athlete
02:40 making the leap into the showbiz of WWE. For our younger viewers out there who didn't get
02:46 the privilege of witnessing Kurt Angle in his prime, let's lay it out for you. Angle had one of,
02:52 if not one of the greatest debut years in professional wrestling history. He picked
02:57 up the business faster than anybody had before and in just one year became the WWE champion
03:03 and was a bona fide main eventer in the very competitive and successful times of the Attitude
03:08 era. Just think of this, main eventers like Stone Cold Steve Austin, The Rock, The Undertaker,
03:14 and Triple H, Kane, they were all in there with Angle and he was hanging in there with them.
03:19 Kurt Angle managed to become that WWE champion with that roster. The reason why he was able to
03:25 do it is because he was an all around superstar and improved with each passing week. Not only was
03:31 he a wrestling machine, a legitimate badass who could beat you in a real fight if he wanted to,
03:36 he had the character work down to a tee. Angle was rightfully inducted in the WWE Hall of Fame
03:42 in 2017, so there is obviously a lot of pressure when it comes to being labeled the next Kurt Angle.
03:48 And that's why those expectations, which maybe in retrospect seem unreasonable,
03:52 were put on Gable Steveson when he signed with WWE. The fans were saying it, the industry was
03:57 saying it itself. Unfortunately for Stevenson, he happened to be entering WWE when social media was
04:03 such a present part of her life. Without getting into too many details, there were serious SA
04:08 allegations made against Gable Steveson. It should be mentioned right off the bat that the case would
04:13 later be dismissed due to an inadequate amount of evidence. As for his WWE career, he was quickly
04:19 drafted to Monday Night Raw in 2021. Imagine that, just a few months after winning an Olympic gold
04:25 medal on worldwide TV, he was officially a superstar on WWE's flagship show. But still,
04:32 none of his pro wrestling performances had been televised by this time. The perception
04:36 amongst fans was that he was not the next in line college blue chipper, but his hot topic name was
04:42 simply skipping the line and being used to get some attention. It was not an actual call up to
04:48 weekly WWE main roster TV. It built up more desire to see what he could do, but we weren't actually
04:55 seeing him do it. Months later, while still training for a pro wrestling debut, Steveson
05:00 would be presented with the biggest possible stage he could have to give the audience a sample of
05:06 what he could do in pro wrestling. He would end up appearing at WrestleMania 38 in Texas,
05:10 where he was given his public acknowledgement for his Olympic achievements for the United States,
05:15 and on the second night of Mania, he would tangle physically with a veteran of both sports
05:20 entertainment and mat wrestling and Olympic level performer in his own right, Chad Gable.
05:26 Chad Gable tried to shush the other Gable, but ended up receiving a hip-popping suplex. It was
05:32 quite the cameo, a sample if you will, of a future possible WWE superstar in the making
05:39 who had a lot of built-in hype. Steveson, still a competitor in the collegiate ranks,
05:44 would return to the NCAA Division 1 National Championships, capturing the title again
05:49 before hanging up his amateur wrestling boots to give all of his focus and dedication to WWE.
05:55 While still making the pivot to pro wrestling, some unfortunate news would come, in the form
06:00 of a diagnosis with a rare congenital heart defect known as Wolf-Parkinson-White Syndrome.
06:06 This delay to his body-slamming aspirations was reported in October of 2022 by ESPN.
06:12 Stevenson revealed to them that he was aware of the diagnosis prior to winning gold in Tokyo,
06:17 but WWE medical staff advised him to undergo further exams from the top cardiologists.
06:23 This was followed by treatment, which would delay his training even further.
06:26 The same piece showed even more detail on Stevenson's excitement to break big in WWE,
06:32 saying "We're just excited to get this journey started. It's been a long road to get to this
06:36 point. I feel that I'm capable of being in that top spot. I feel that I am capable
06:42 of handling that position in the right way." After never really appearing on Raw,
06:47 Gable made the move quietly over to NXT, and it was the right thing for him to develop with
06:52 other young hopefuls. But after over a year and a half of training, he was far from ready for the
06:58 big time within NXT itself. It was here that Stevenson would compete on un-televised NXT live
07:05 events, before finally being tested by a true WWE main roster veteran in the villainous Baron
07:12 Corbin. They would clash at the upcoming Great American Bash premium live event. All of the hype,
07:18 all of the anticipation was built up for this big match to see him break out in a huge way
07:23 with a real test, in the ring with someone you knew could get the best match out of him.
07:29 The match was not as bad as people labeled it, but certainly the fans in Texas turned on Gable
07:35 Stevenson right away, and they went with the heel Baron Corbin. Unfairly, these Texas fans were
07:42 chanting "You're not Angle" and it ended in a no contest, and fans online weren't too kind to it
07:48 either in their ratings and reviews. It even got the dreaded "Bulls**t, Bulls**t" chant at the end.
07:55 Following this, Stevenson would be featured on NXT live events, but not on NXT weekly television. He
08:01 then would perform on un-televised dark matches at WWE NXT Smackdown shows against the likes of
08:08 Cameron Grimes and Cedric Alexander. His final match for WWE would take place on February 24th
08:16 at the Spectrum Center in Charlotte, North Carolina against Cedric Alexander. And that
08:21 was the last you would see of Gable Stevenson, at least for now, in the WWE.
08:26 And then in May of 2024, according to Dave Meltzer of the Wrestling Observer Newsletter,
08:31 Stevenson was a part of a recent wave of WWE cuts to the NXT division. That's right,
08:37 all that hype, and this is how it ended. The timing could not have been worse. With
08:41 the Paris Olympics not far away, Stevenson, if he wanted to pursue another run at Olympic gold in
08:47 the freestyle wrestling events, would have to be in the World Championship Freestyle Wrestling
08:52 Tournament and perform there well to represent the United States in Paris at the Olympics.
08:58 Well, he pulled out of that tournament, and then shortly after was released by WWE.
09:02 Stevenson, though, still has a lot of opportunities in the combat sports world. The allure of MMA is
09:08 certainly still there. He's a big name with a legitimate sports background who could really
09:14 prove to be a heavyweight handle in the UFC if he could train for that as well.
09:20 Stevenson is not a bad pro wrestler. He has legitimate skills, and don't let one single
09:26 live crowd reaction in his single televised wrestling match be the defining factor of who he
09:32 is within the wide spectrum of what WWE is. He showed calculated psychology and athletic energy
09:40 in that single performance. He truly has a lot of skills and could do something with them.
09:46 It's simply a matter of what could have been with Gable Stevenson.
09:50 Are we going to see more of him in pro wrestling in general? Will we ever see him again in WWE?
09:55 What are some other big names from the world of pro sports that you would want to see in WWE?
10:00 Let us know in the comments below!
10:01 (upbeat music)