Olympic gold medalist Gable Steveson is set to appear on WWE TV soon.
Steveson is still under WWE contract, but he is now focused on competing in the 2024 Olympics in Paris. In a recent interview with Cliff Brunt of The Associated Press, he stated that he never lost his desire to entertain on the amateur mat while achieving his long-held dream of joining WWE.
Steveson announced his retirement after winning gold at the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo and two college national titles for the University of Minnesota. He debuted at WWE SummerSlam 2021, then signed a multi-year contract the following month, and was selected by RAW in the WWE Draft the month after that. Steveson made a few more appearances for WWE, but has not been included in a Draft or any significant creative plans since, and has remained an amateur. Steveson has split his time between the WWE Performance Center in Orlando and Minneapolis with Brandon Eggum, his college coach at the University of Minnesota. While still under contract with WWE, Steveson’s desire to establish himself as one of amateur wrestling’s all-time greats became too strong, and he is now vying for 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 backflips after his biggest wins, says he didn’t get the full Olympic experience in Tokyo because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Now he wants to share that experience with his fans and 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.”
In April, Steveson returned to amateur competition at the U.S. Open, where he defeated some of the country’s best heavyweight wrestlers by a combined score of 44-1. His performance earned him a spot in Final X on Saturday, where he will face Mason Parris. Steveson defeated Parris in the NCAA finals in 2021 and 11-1 in the US Open semifinals. Each Final X best-of-three championship series winner will represent the United States in the 2023 Senior World Championships in Belgrade, Serbia.
Fans will see the best version of Steveson yet, according to Steveson.
“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 stated that he expects to appear on WWE TV soon, but he did not specify when. He claims that becoming a professional wrestler takes more time 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 is also optimistic about Steveson’s future with WWE.
“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.”
