Olympic gold medalist and two-time NCAA Division I wrestler Gable Steveson has locked up another fight, his fourth in just five months.
Steveson is set to fight 11-3 heavyweight Hugo “Pandemonium” Lezama at a Mexico Fight League event on Thursday, February 19th in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon, just across the border from Texas.
Lezama is the toughest test Steveson has faced in his short career, which currently consists of two MMA bouts and one Dirty Boxing fight. All three of those fights ended via KO or TKO
early in the first round, setting the stage for Steveson to get hyped up as a potential future MMA champion.
When you look at the records of his three past opponents — 1-0, 4-2, and 2-1-1 — you realize it may be a little too early to guarantee UFC gold in Gable’s future. But his team (which involves UFC GOAT Jon Jones) is doing a good job of bringing him up. His opponents have had reasonable records considering Steveson himself was 0-0 prior to September 2025. And now they’re giving him an 11-3 opponent. Yes, two of those loses did come in his last three fights, but Lezama’s record isn’t that of a journeyman can.
You get the feeling that if it was up to Steveson himself, he’d already be signing a UFC contract. Matchmaker Mick Maynard was in the crowd for his last knockout win, and Gable called for a deal. But as is the case with most top prospects these days, we expect Steveson to go through the Dana White Contender Series pipeline.
That could leave him testing his mettle in the minors until August, which is when past Contender Series seasons have started. But with White teasing more of the show on new broadcast partner Paramount+, maybe we could see Gable sign a UFC contract sooner rather than later.
First, he’ll have to get past Hugo Lezama in Mexico next month.
