Gable Steveson credits Jon Jones for clearing his MMA path. Olympic gold medalist and rapidly rising MMA prospect Gable Steveson says a chance connection with legendary former UFC champion Jon Jones helped him clarify his path into mixed martial arts and sparked a deeply personal motivation to succeed in the sport.
The heavyweight super prospect, who is 2-0 with two finishes to start his MMA career revealed the moment during a recent interview on The Joe Rogan Experience, explaining how training with Jones shifted his mindset and accelerated his MMA goals.
“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.”
Steveson’s athletic journey has been anything but linear. After winning Olympic gold in freestyle wrestling, he explored careers in professional wrestling with WWE and even signed with the NFL’s Buffalo Bills as an undrafted free agent defensive tackle before shifting focus back to combat sports.
His move toward MMA began in earnest when he joined training sessions with Jones during preparations for Jones’ own comeback attempts, giving Steveson a first-hand look at MMA prep at the highest level.
It wasn’t just about training, the experience provided Steveson with a mental model for what a career in the sport could look like and how hard he’d need to work to make it a reality.
Steveson has since then found success in his early MMA career, remaining undefeated through his first two professional fights with decisive finishes that have drawn attention from major promotions and fans alike.
“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.”
As Steveson continues to build momentum, including a recent 24-second knockout in his second professional match, the influence of Jones’ approach to combat sports has been ever-present. Steveson’s desire to emulate Jones’ dedication and success is rooted in firsthand experience rather than admiration.
