Heavyweight Gable Steveson entered the UFC to much fanfare thanks to his Olympic and collegiate wrestling pedigree, having won gold in 2020 at the Tokyo Olympics, and twice capturing a NCAA Division I championship.
The wrestling, in other words, is always right there. The takedown always waiting to be had. So how does Steveson (4-0) resist the temptation to take the easy path the victory in training? Focus.
“It is always right there when we’re training, but I feel like I try to focus on the hands, the kicks, the elbows, the knees, and make sure I can adapt to every style. I know I can wrestle, I know I can go out there and take a guy down and keep him down, but the best thing is, you can’t just go in there and shoot. The guys are too good now,” Steveson told Cageside Press in an exclusive interview this week. “You’ve got to go out there and set it up now, you’ve got to punch, you’ve got to kick to set it up, you’ve got to fake. You’ve got to do a lot of things to make them react. That’s what I’ve been focusing on, and I’m excited to show it on Saturday.”
There’s plenty of fantasy matchmaking going on with Gable Steveson among the MMA fanbase. Steveson vs. Lewis. Steveson vs. Hokit. Steveson vs. Gane. Many see him as a future champion, but he’s taking it “one day at a time,” he stated.
Tuning out all the noise means making sure “you’re staying ten toes to the ground,” Steveson added. “Understand who you are, understand what your capabilities are. And when that time comes, we’ll make sure we’re most definitely ready. But a lot of people want to make fantasy match-ups right now, and that’s okay. But when that time comes, we’ll most definitely be ready, when our fantasies become reality.”
Steveson has trained with the WWE, and no doubt worked on his skills on the mic. But don’t expect to hear a lot of trash talk out of him.
“I’ve never been a really a showman, a talker. I’ve never been a bad talker about people, I’ve never really tried to make fun of anybody. I’m going to go out there and speak with confidence about myself, I let people know who I am and who I’m going to be, and they respect that. And if they don’t respect that, you’ve still got to watch, you’ve still got to pay attention to the match. At the end of the day, I can get on the microphone and speak in the most proper way, I can get on there and speak in the worst way. It’s not going to make a difference, because my winning’s going to do the talking.”
Gable Steveson faces Sean Sharaf at UFC 331 this Saturday, September 19 in Los Angeles, CA.