Gable Steveson is seen by many as someone who will be a heavyweight champion in mixed martial arts someday and someone who has known him since the amateur wrestling days sees this vision as well. The referenced fighter here is Mitch McKee who is coming off of his biggest career win in MMA over Sergio Pettis at the PFL Chicago card.
The mixed martial arts journeys are intertwined as well with Steveson making his MMA debut on a card that McKee headlined previously under the LFA banner at LFA 217 last September. Being part of all that and being enmeshed into Gable’s story in an even deeper sense, when asked for his thoughts on what the former Olympic wrestling medalist’s ceiling in MMA could be, with many touting him as an eventual UFC champion, McKee said [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“Oh, I mean, I don’t doubt it. I mean, I’ve been wrestling with Gable since we were like in middle school. So, I’ve been on plenty; dozens of Team Minnesota teams with him, Team USA teams with him. Yeah, so I’ve grown up. I mean, our high schools were rivals. So we were rivals during the regular wrestling season and then we’d be on like the same teams together during the freestyle season. Yeah and then obviously we were on the Gophers together.”
Gable Steveson is ” the most athletic person I’ve ever seen for his size”, per McKee
Further expounding upon his thoughts on Gable Steveson’s capacity to thrive in mixed martial arts, McKee continued [via Bowks Talking Bouts],
“But yeah, he’s just so athletic. He’s the most athletic person I’ve ever seen for his size. Just the natural ability that he has and it doesn’t even matter what he’s doing. Like we used to play handball to warm up in college and like he’d be the one, one hand snagging balls and flipping it behind his back. Like he just always is an athlete no matter what he does. So, he puts his mind [to it], he really puts his mind to MMA, I have no doubts he can become a world champion.”