It has been a rough week for former WWE Superstar Gable Steveson. Not only did his previous allegations of sexual abuse get brought up in the lead up to his fight with Sean Shafar at UFC 331, but when the two men met inside the Octagon, Shafar knocked Steveson out in 12 seconds in one of the most shocking moments in recent MMA history.
Since winning gold at the 2021 Olympic Games in Tokyo, Japan, Steveson has tried his hand at MMA, football, and even dirty boxing, but it was WWE that gave him his first big chance post-Olympics. However, it never worked out and he was released in 2024, and during a recent edition of “Wrestling Observer Radio,” Dave Meltzer revealed that the original plan was for Steveson to have a Brock Lesnar-esque push.
“The original idea for Steveson was to f****** Brock Lesnar him right away,” Meltzer said. “He was going to be at [WrestleMania] right away but he just didn’t progress fast enough to where they trusted putting him out there, like they could have gotten him through a match with Chad Gable probably, and a short match and everything like that, but I think that they didn’t trust the spotlight on him. He couldn’t talk, he didn’t have a lot of charisma, and I watched several of his matches with Trevor Lee…Trevor Lee’s such a great worker right? I remember seeing two of them and they were, you know, they weren’t good, and I know how good Trevor Lee is.”
Meltzer also stated that compared to the likes of Bron Breakker and even his own brother Bobby, Gable simply didn’t progress fast enough, nor did he even look like he tried to progress to a level that WWE wanted him to be at. Meltzer rounded off by saying that it got to the point where WWE couldn’t justify the money Steveson was earning as it was closer to main roster money than “WWE NXT” money.
Please credit “Wrestling Observer Radio” when using quotes from this article, and give a H/T to Wrestling Inc. for the transcription.
Read the full article here
