WWE’s Gable Steveson is set to return to international wrestling competition after a long absence.
Steveson, an Olympic gold medalist wrestler, announced on Instagram on Tuesday night that he will compete in the 2023 U.S. Open, which will be held from Wednesday, April 26 to Sunday, April 30 at the South Point Hotel, Casino, and Spa in Las Vegas, NV. The brief clip is available below.
Team USA Wrestling and FloWrestling later confirmed that Gable’s registration in the U.S. Open signaled his return to amateur wrestling competition.
In recent media appearances, Steveson has hinted that he wants to return to the mat as the 2024 Olympic cycle approaches. The announcement on Tuesday brings an end to a 13-month absence from the sport, which began with last season’s NCAA Championships, when Steveson left his wrestling shoes in the center of the mat, which traditionally signals the end of a competitor’s career.
Team USA speculated that the U.S. Open could be Steveson’s first event back on the mat, as the tournament serves as the first step in qualifying for the U.S. Olympic Trials next summer.
The former Minnesota Gopher heavyweight champion will wrestle for the Gopher Wrestling Club, Minnesota’s regional training center for international styles. He will compete alongside fellow GWC athlete and 2022 World Team member Hayden Zillmer at 125 kilograms. Later this month, fans will be able to watch the US Open live on FloWrestling.
During his four seasons at the University of Minnesota, Steveson compiled an 85-2 career record with 60 bonus-point victories. He won two NCAA championships, three Big Ten championships, and two Dan Hodge trophies, a first. He also won a gold medal in the 2020 Tokyo Olympics.
As of this writing, WWE had not responded to Gable’s announcement.
Steveson, Damon Kemp’s brother, signed a WWE contract in the summer of 2021, around the time of his brief appearance at SummerSlam that year. After WWE launched their NIL program, it was later announced that Steveson was the first to be under a Next In Line contract. Steveson was drafted to the RAW brand in the 2021 WWE Draft that October, but he is still not listed as a RAW Superstar on the official WWE website as of this writing. Steveson was then introduced by then-WWE Chairwoman & Co-CEO Stephanie McMahon during Night 1 of WrestleMania 38 in 2022. On the second night of WrestleMania 38, he confronted Alpha Academy’s Gable and finished him with a suplex. Steveson then appeared on the December 9, 2022 episode of SmackDown from Pittsburgh to assist WWE Hall of Famer Kurt Angle, another Olympic gold medalist, in taking out Alpha Academy with a milk truck.
Steveson had been training at the WWE Performance Center in Orlando, under former WWE Superstar Ken Anderson at one point. In October 2022, it was revealed that Steveson was treated for Wolff-Parkinson-White syndrome, and that the treatment delayed his WWE training because it spanned multiple summer months. Then, in December 2022, around the time of the SmackDown debut, it was reported that WWE was discussing incorporating Steveson into the storylines, but nothing has happened since then.
As PWMania.com previously reported, Gable stated in a March 2023 interview that his WWE debut would take place soon because he was “pretty close to debuting and being on-screen.” He also stated his desire to compete in the 2024 Olympics.
