Jon Jones may be preparing to wind down his career in MMA, but he’s also in the process of winding up a protege: Olympic wrestling gold medalist and three time NCAA champion Gable Steveson.
Steveson officially committed to combat sports in late 2025 and has been having a great rookie year, going 3-0 in three months — all first round knockouts. He’s two weeks out from a February 19th fight in Monterrey, Mexico. And according to his mentor and coach Jon Jones, he could be a champion by this time next
year.
“He’s unbelievable. He’s an unbelievable athlete, human being,” Jones told Helen Yee in a new interview. “He’s way more disciplined and dedicated than I ever was at his age, and I’m scared. I’m scared for the future of the UFC. Like, he is going to wreck s–t. He’s gonna wreck people.”
“This time next year, I could see it happening,” he said of Steveson’s UFC championship potential. ” Once he signs with the UFC, there’s gonna be no stopping him.”
“He can strike, and I think that’s his weakness right now. His grappling is just through the roof. His takedowns are unstoppable, his ground and pound is effective, his sense to know where his body is at all time. He just has it all. And once he really learns what he’s doing, it’s not gonna be fair.”
For the last three years, Dana White’s Contender Series has returned in August. It’s unclear if there’ll be more DWCS in the Paramount+ era, but if we were to guess when Steveson will transition to UFC, we’d bet on it being through that show.
For now, Jones says they’ll continue to build Gable up and sharpen his skills in the minor leagues.
“Right now, we have goals outside of the UFC,” Jones said. “We wanna have him established so that when he gets into the UFC, he has no questions about what he’s capable of.”
Steveson’s next test is 11-3 heavyweight Hugo “Pandemonium” Lezama in Mexico. Let’s see how he handles it.
