Gable Steveson, the heavyweight freestyle wrestler who won a gold medal at the Tokyo Olympics last month, has signed a multiyear deal with WWE according to ESPN.
The 21-year-old signed a NIL deal with WWE that will allow him to attend the University of Minnesota for his senior year and defend the Division I national championship at heavyweight. WWE will set up a remote training facility for Steveson near campus where he’ll learn the finer points of in-ring work with WWE coaches.
“I’ve been on WWE since I was really young,” said Steveson, WWE’s first gold medalist since Kurt Angle. “I was on guys like Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman for a very long time. So growing up watching them, me being an entertainer on the wrestling mat, it just felt like it was the right choice.”
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Steveson won gold at the 2021 Summer Olympics in Tokyo and made an appearance at WWE SummerSlam shortly thereafter. Olympic wrestlers turned WWE superstars have found much success.
Angle won a gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics before becoming a multi-time world champion in WWE and one of the greatest in-ring workers of all time.