{"id":141022,"date":"2025-09-13T21:05:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-13T21:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/141022\/"},"modified":"2025-09-13T21:05:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-13T21:05:08","slug":"jon-jones-has-high-praise-for-gable-steveson-after-impressive-mma-debut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/141022\/","title":{"rendered":"Jon Jones has high praise for Gable Steveson after impressive MMA debut"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Count Jon Jones among those impressed by Gable Steveson\u2019s first professional mixed martial arts bout.<\/p>\n<p>Steveson, a 2020 Olympic gold medal-winning freestyle wrestler, earned a dominant first-round technical knockout victory Friday night at a Legacy Fighting Alliance event in Prior Lake, Minn.<\/p>\n<p>The 25-year-old heavyweight has spent time training with Jones, a former two-weight UFC champion, ahead of his MMA debut, and Jones was in attendance watching Steveson pick up a 98-second win.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cHe\u2019s a freak athlete. He\u2019s incredibly fast, powerful, intelligent,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/x.com\/UFCFightPass\/status\/1966699454439870557\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener nofollow\">Jones said backstage at the event<\/a>. \u201cHe has the work ethic and he\u2019s shown our team (at Jackson Wink MMA Academy) that he\u2019s willing to humble himself and surround himself with the best, and I think he has the perfect formula to go all the way to the top.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Steveson\u2019s opponent, Braden Peterson, was competing in just his second pro bout. The 37-year-old won his pro debut in July after going 4-1 as an amateur between January and April.<\/p>\n<p>Steveson\u2019s post-Olympic athletic career has been highly anticipated.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The Division 1 All-American from the University of Minnesota signed an NIL deal with World Wrestling Entertainment and made occasional appearances on WWE shows between 2021 and 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Following his stint with WWE, Steveson signed a contract with the NFL\u2019s Buffalo Bills to play defensive lineman despite the fact that he had never played football previously. He never made the Bills&#8217; main roster and was released in August of 2024.<\/p>\n<p>Steveson is now a high-ceiling prospect in MMA\u2019s heavyweight division.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Count Jon Jones among those impressed by Gable Steveson\u2019s first professional mixed martial arts bout. Steveson, a 2020&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":141023,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85],"class_list":["post-141022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=141022"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/141022\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/141023"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=141022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=141022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=141022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}