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After winning Olympic gold in Tokyo, wrestler Gable Steveson is headed to WWE.
Steveson, a 21-year-old University of Minnesota wrestler, announced his deal with the company through a post toTwitteron Thursday.
“Childhood dream accomplished,” he said. “I have officially signed with the @WWE!!! Thank you for the opportunity!! LETS WORK.”
The announcement comes nearly a month to the day after Steveson miraculouslywon gold in the 125kg wrestling finalat theTokyo Olympics.
As the match approached its conclusion, Steveson was trailing his opponent, Georgia’s Geno Petriashvili, 8-5. It seemed certain Steveson would go home with a silver medal, but with 10 seconds remaining, he took down Petriashvili twice to win. In fact, his winning point came with only 0.4 seconds left on the clock.
“I’ve been on WWE since I was really young,” Steveson toldESPNof joining WWE. “I was on guys like Brock Lesnar and Paul Heyman for a very long time. So growing up watching them, me being an entertainer on the wrestling mat, it just felt like it was the right choice.”
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Steveson will be following in the footsteps of one other famous Olympic gold medalist turned WWE superstar: Kurt Angle.
Angle, now retired from professional wrestling, won the freestyle wrestling gold medal at the 1996 Summer Olympics in Atlanta, Georgia. Angle famously broke his neck during the match, suffering “two bulged and herniated disks, two cracked vertebrae and four pulled muscles,” according toESPN.
He joined WWE (then WWF) in 1998 — at the height of the company’s “Attitude Era,” which also featured the likes ofStone Cold Steve Austin,The Undertaker, andDwayne “the Rock” Johnson— and became one of professional wrestling’s biggest stars.
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“This is just the starting line and nowhere close to the finish line,” WWE president and chief revenue officer, Nick Khan, told the outlet. “So our investment is based on how much we think of Gable now and how much bigger we think he can become.”
source: people.com
