Olympic Wrestler Presented At NXT Takeover, Interested In WWE

Get to know your future. Wrestling is an industry that needs to have new talent brought in on a regular basis. Wrestlers come from all over the place, oftentimes from other sports. One of the most logical places to look would be the amateur wrestling ranks, but you never know how someone might be able to handle the transition. Sometimes it has worked rather well and that might be the case again.

In the old days, amateur wrestling was one of the most prominent ways to get into the professional ranks. If you already know how to do some amateur wrestling, it would make sense to put you into a bigger world. How many former NWA World Champions had a strong amateur background? It makes sense and has still done the same quite a few times today. It might be happening one more time.

Former NCAA Heavyweight Champion and Olympic wrestler Gable Steveson appeared during the second night of NXT Takeover: Stand & Deliver. Steveson, with Stephanie McMahon at his side, was presented to the crowd, as has been done with several names over the years at Takeover. Steveson has mentioned wanting to join the WWE one day and will be competing in the Summer Olympics in Tokyo, Japan later this year. There is nothing to suggest that Steveson has signed any kind of a deal with WWE.

You might need to get used to him. Check out Steveson and a few technical wrestlers in WWE:

Gable Steveson vs. Mason Parris: 2021 NCAA Title (285 lbs.)

FULL MATCH - Kurt Angle vs. Shawn Michaels: WrestleMania 21

WWE has a history of former NCAA Heavyweight Champions, with Brock Lesnar and Kurt Angle as two of the most prominent names. Various WWE wrestlers have also wrestled in the Olympics, including Angle who won a gold medal and Chad Gable, who competed in the game but lost in the second round. Other WWE stars with an NCAA background include Shelton Benjamin and Jason Jordan.

Opinion: This is the kind of thing that makes a lot of sense as at the end of the day, amateur wrestling is about as logical of a background as you can get in professional wrestling. Even if they can’t do much else, an amateur background is something that can get you a very long way. I’m not sure if Steveson is going to be a huge star, but it is nice to see him considering WWE like this.

Also, I missed the NXT crowd appearances. Those things were some of the highlights of a lot of the earlier Takeovers as it was a cool moment to see who was going to be making their debut at the show. It wasn’t even a guarantee that they would be coming to the company but it gave the fans something to get excited about. I’d love it if they bring those back, just for the sake of some more energy.

Thomas Hall has been a wrestling fan for over thirty years and has seen over 50,000 wrestling matches. He has also been a wrestling reviewer since 2009 with over 5,000 full shows covered. You can find his work at kbwrestlingreviews.com, or check out his- Amazon author page with 30 wrestling books.

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