Has any WWE Superstar, especially an outside “celebrity” addition, seen their stock fall as fast and brutally as Gable Steveson?
We went from appearing at WrestleMania, working alongside Kurt Angle, and having debates over whether or not Chad Gable should change his in-ring – and legal – name within the WWE Universe to a performer practically booed out the building against Baron Corbin at NXT Great American Bash and was ultimately released a few months later.
What gives? Did all the outside noise about Steveson’s arrests simply cloud his “Olympic Hero”-style hype? Or was it his unwillingness to commit to the grind that did it, as he seemingly always had one foot in the door and another in other opportunities?
Discussing what happened in an interview with Ariel Helwani on his namesake show, Steveson noted it was much of the latter, as he never gave WWE his full attention.
“When I got to WWE, everything was great, and everything went great the whole time. It just wasn’t the right time. After I signed with WWE, I tried to go back to wrestle, and you can’t do consistently the one foot in, one foot out of everything, and as time went on, it just wasn’t the right thing. I wanted to keep wrestling and keep going in that direction, and WWE had a different direction,” Steveson explained via Fightful. “Obviously, it’s no hard feelings. It’s never bad blood. I did see Paul Levesque, Triple H, at the UFC event, and we had a brief convo, and everything was very civil and very nice. It was great to see him and Stephanie backstage. Everything is good. There’s no hard feelings on my end. They knew at the time that I wanted to keep being competitive, and it was just a little bump in the road, and it happens.”
Interesting stuff, right? Well wait, it gets even better, as Steveson had plenty more to say on his failed WWE run.
Gable Steveson doesn’t want to close the door on another WWE run
Did Steveson know his run in the promotion was likely coming to an end, or was he blindsided by his release? Well, the Olympic gold medalist answered that question, too, noting that he wanted to keep his business to himself in order to keep any future doors open in the space.
“I’m not sure. We’ll just leave it as everything’s all good. There’s no tensions, there’s no animosity against anything. If the opportunity definitely came around in the future and I would love to put both feet back in and take off and go run with it, and I would love that. But business is always gonna be business. You gotta take risks in your life, and some of the risks don’t work, and that one didn’t work, and there’s no problems with me, I’m hands-off, and time will always come back around hopefully,” Steveson explained.
“I stayed quiet just because there was no hard feelings when I did get let go, and there’s still no hard feelings now. I have nothing to say about the business because when I sat down with Vince [McMahon] and Nick Khan and Triple H, it was all love, that’s when I first met them in 2021. From then on, there was no problems. I took it as a hit on the chin, a humbling experience, and you guys keep moving forward. If you are bitter about something, then there must have been a problem, and there was no problems with me.”
Could Steveson rehab his image, win another national championship and get popular enough to justify another run in WWE? Potentially so, as few questioned the original decision to bring him into the promotion, even if it didn’t ultimately work out. When Steveson’s eligibility at Minnesota runs out, who knows, maybe he’ll be back in WWE… unless he wants to give the NFL another shot with the Buffalo Bills or another team in need of some Olympic-sized headlines.
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