Former Bills hopeful Gable Steveson says UFC was 'always the plan' before much-anticipated debut
Two years ago, Gable Steveson was in a Buffalo Bills training camp trying to learn the difference between a snap count and a snap decision. He had never played high school football. He still earned a tackle and a QB pressure in his first-ever preseason game.
The Bills cut him anyway. On Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, that detour through Western New York starts to look less like a failure and more like a footnote, because Steveson is finally doing what most people who watched him wrestle always knew he was going to do.
Gable Steveson’s UFC debut comes after he said he can be the best at almost any sport
Steveson enters UFC 329 with a rare résumé. He won Olympic gold in freestyle wrestling at the 2020 Summer Olympics. He also won two NCAA Division I national titles and four Big Ten championships at Minnesota.
That is the part everyone knows. The stranger part is what happened next. Steveson went from amateur wrestling to WWE, then to the NFL, then back toward combat sports. In May 2024, he signed with the Buffalo Bills despite never playing football in high school or college.
That experiment did not last long. Steveson played three preseason games, recording three tackles and two quarterback hits, according to NFL.com’s Grant Gordon. He did not make Buffalo’s final roster.
Still, the Bills stint did something useful for him. It made the story bigger. Steveson did not just talk about being a rare athlete. He tried to prove it in a sport he had never played.
Now, he is doing it again in the UFC.
Ahead of the fight, Yahoo Sports reported that Steveson leaned fully into that belief. “I think it’s a huge way to go out there and have people say, ‘Man, he could be the next big thing,’” Steveson said. “But I think when you believe that you can be the next big thing, that is a different story. Because other people say, ‘You can be,’ but you already know that you will be.”
Then he went further.
“So, I believe I can be the best at anything,” Steveson said. “I can play baseball, I can play soccer, I can go out there and play cricket, I can do anything I probably ever wanted. So, that’s my mindset.”
That is a dangerous quote because it leaves no room to hide. It is not humble. It is not careful. It is exactly the kind of line that can either age beautifully or get clipped forever.
Against Ellison, Steveson has the matchup to back it up. He is 3-0 in MMA , and all three wins came by first-round stoppage. NFL.com noted that his total cage time is only 5 minutes and 52 seconds. For now, the hype is louder than the sample size. Saturday decides whether that starts to change.
The former Buffalo Bills defensive lineman now gets the kind of stage most UFC prospects never see
Steveson is not easing into the UFC quietly. His promotional debut comes at UFC 329: McGregor vs. Holloway 2 at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas. Fighting on a card headlined by Conor McGregor and Max Holloway is not normal prospect treatment. It is a spotlight.
That spotlight makes sense. Steveson has Olympic credentials, NFL curiosity, and Jon Jones involved in his MMA path. Gordon reported that Jones has been heavily involved in Steveson’s career, while Greg Jackson is now his head coach.
Jackson did not exactly lower expectations during “UFC Embedded.”
“I think if you’re a fan, you’re going to need to tune in to see what can this guy do,” Jackson said. “I mean he already won the Olympic gold medal at heavyweight in wrestling. That is so hard to do, I can’t even tell you. Where is the ceiling? What can he accomplish? What can he do? I’m telling you right now, I’ve worked with most of the greatest fighters to ever do this game and his athletic ability is unprecedented. The way he thinks about things, how smart he is, how coachable. You need to tune in now to see where the ceiling for this guy is, cause he might be redefining what this sport is.”
That is not a small endorsement. Jackson has coached Jon Jones, Georges St-Pierre, Rashad Evans, Carlos Condit, and Holly Holm. When someone with that résumé uses the word “unprecedented,” it matters.
But the UFC is not preseason football. Ellison is 5-2, and Steveson will be fighting under MMA rules, not wrestling rules. Heavyweight fights can turn on one mistake. One clean punch can make a favorite look ordinary.
The Bills cut him anyway. On Saturday night at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, that detour through Western New York starts to look less like a failure and more like a footnote, because Steveson is finally doing what most people who watched him wrestle always knew he was going to do.
Gable Steveson’s UFC debut comes after he said he can be the best at almost any sport
Steveson enters UFC 329 with a rare résumé. He won Olympic gold in freestyle wrestling at the 2020 Summer Olympics. He also won two NCAA Division I national titles and four Big Ten championships at Minnesota.
That is the part everyone knows. The stranger part is what happened next. Steveson went from amateur wrestling to WWE, then to the NFL, then back toward combat sports. In May 2024, he signed with the Buffalo Bills despite never playing football in high school or college.
That experiment did not last long. Steveson played three preseason games, recording three tackles and two quarterback hits, according to NFL.com’s Grant Gordon. He did not make Buffalo’s final roster.
Still, the Bills stint did something useful for him. It made the story bigger. Steveson did not just talk about being a rare athlete. He tried to prove it in a sport he had never played.
Now, he is doing it again in the UFC.
Ahead of the fight, Yahoo Sports reported that Steveson leaned fully into that belief. “I think it’s a huge way to go out there and have people say, ‘Man, he could be the next big thing,’” Steveson said. “But I think when you believe that you can be the next big thing, that is a different story. Because other people say, ‘You can be,’ but you already know that you will be.”
Then he went further.
“So, I believe I can be the best at anything,” Steveson said. “I can play baseball, I can play soccer, I can go out there and play cricket, I can do anything I probably ever wanted. So, that’s my mindset.”
That is a dangerous quote because it leaves no room to hide. It is not humble. It is not careful. It is exactly the kind of line that can either age beautifully or get clipped forever.
Against Ellison, Steveson has the matchup to back it up. He is 3-0 in MMA , and all three wins came by first-round stoppage. NFL.com noted that his total cage time is only 5 minutes and 52 seconds. For now, the hype is louder than the sample size. Saturday decides whether that starts to change.
The former Buffalo Bills defensive lineman now gets the kind of stage most UFC prospects never see
That spotlight makes sense. Steveson has Olympic credentials, NFL curiosity, and Jon Jones involved in his MMA path. Gordon reported that Jones has been heavily involved in Steveson’s career, while Greg Jackson is now his head coach.
Jackson did not exactly lower expectations during “UFC Embedded.”
“I think if you’re a fan, you’re going to need to tune in to see what can this guy do,” Jackson said. “I mean he already won the Olympic gold medal at heavyweight in wrestling. That is so hard to do, I can’t even tell you. Where is the ceiling? What can he accomplish? What can he do? I’m telling you right now, I’ve worked with most of the greatest fighters to ever do this game and his athletic ability is unprecedented. The way he thinks about things, how smart he is, how coachable. You need to tune in now to see where the ceiling for this guy is, cause he might be redefining what this sport is.”
That is not a small endorsement. Jackson has coached Jon Jones, Georges St-Pierre, Rashad Evans, Carlos Condit, and Holly Holm. When someone with that résumé uses the word “unprecedented,” it matters.
But the UFC is not preseason football. Ellison is 5-2, and Steveson will be fighting under MMA rules, not wrestling rules. Heavyweight fights can turn on one mistake. One clean punch can make a favorite look ordinary.
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