Gable Steveson credits Jon Jones for putting him in the mindset he’s on right now.
The heavyweight super prospect, who is 2-0 with two finishes to start his MMA career, is knocking on the door of a UFC call. The Olympic gold medalist finally made the move to mixed martial arts this past year, but it truly began after getting a direct message on social media from the former two-division UFC champion and all-time great.
“I knew Jon from Instagram,” Steveson said on the Joe Rogan Experience. “He sent
me a DM, he sent me his number, and if you know Jon, he don’t answer the phone worth anything — and it’s crazy. He sent me his number and said ‘call me,’ so I called him and this is before he got hurt for the first Stipe [Miocic] fight. He was like, ‘I want you to come practice with us, I want a wrestling partner.
“I left him and played football. Next year comes… he’s like, ‘I want you to come back for the second camp.’ He’s going through it, me and Jon hit it off like that.”
The MMA community saw Steveson as a potential heavyweight contender even before he signed a contract with WWE to an NIL deal. Steveson was eventually released from his WWE contract in 2024.
Steveson then transitioned to the world of pro football, signing a contract with the Buffalo Bills despite never playing the game. A few months later, Steveson was released by the Bills, which left the door wide open to pursue MMA.
Working with Jones in preparation of his first heavyweight title defense against Miocic was not only an honor for Steveson, but it was an eye-opening experience that gave the five-time All-American wrestler all of the motivation to become a world champion in mixed martial arts.
“I needed somebody to kind of engrave it in me,” Steveson explained. “With the wrestling, I had my father, I had the University if Minnesota, I had good people around me kind of say, ‘Hey, this is how we’re going to do it, this is where you need to go, and this is how it’s going to happen.
“And when I saw Jon, I saw that drive, like, ‘Damn, this guy’s winning and people get close but they can’t get past him. Why is that?’ So I really sat back and watched his mental, how he went about a lot of things, how he talked to people, how he walked, how he punched, how he looked when he was in the pocket, when he needed to get out, when he rested his hands. And I saw everything. I was like, ‘Man, this guy’s a superstar — a super, super star,’ and we all knew that, and people knew that for a long time.
“But I really saw him and I was like, ‘Damn, I want to be that,’ and that’s what really flipped my switch right there.”
