{"id":478562,"date":"2026-02-16T13:29:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-16T13:29:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/478562\/"},"modified":"2026-02-16T13:29:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-16T13:29:08","slug":"joe-rogan-backs-jon-jones-trained-gable-steveson-to-be-next-ufc-heavyweight-star-sports-news-blitz","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/478562\/","title":{"rendered":"Joe Rogan backs Jon Jones\u2013trained Gable Steveson to be next UFC heavyweight star \u2014 Sports News Blitz"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"sqsrte-large\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Future heavyweight champion?<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">While talking to ESPN\u2019s Brett Okamoto, Steveson revealed that his team is in frequent contact with the UFC.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cWe\u2019ve been in contact \u2013 after every fight, there\u2019s a call with my team and it\u2019s all positive stuff,\u201d Steveson said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cWhen I\u2019m ready to go, I\u2019ll jump ship, and I\u2019ve relayed that message to them.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">In the same interview, Steveson admitted he was eyeing up a UFC debut as soon as the White House card on June 14.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">\u201cI think there\u2019s a spot for me, especially being a US Olympic champion,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Steveson has drawn comparisons with former UFC heavyweight champion Brock Lesnar as both spent time in amateur and professional wrestling before moving to MMA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">Lesnar\u2019s background in amateur wrestling famously gave him the skills to win the UFC heavyweight title in just his fourth fight.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">It is fair to say that Steveson could do similar, with his more prestigious amateur wrestling career and\u00a0the shallow nature of the heavyweight division combining to allow such a feat.<\/p>\n<p class=\"\" style=\"white-space:pre-wrap;\">YOU MAY ALSO LIKE: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.thesportsnewsblitz.com\/news\/mma-news-sean-strickland-back-in-action-vs-anthony-hernandez-but-is-his-star-quality-waning\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">MMA news: Sean Strickland back in action vs Anthony Hernandez \u2013 but is his star quality waning?<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Future heavyweight champion? While talking to ESPN\u2019s Brett Okamoto, Steveson revealed that his team is in frequent contact&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":478563,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82],"class_list":["post-478562","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478562","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=478562"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/478562\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/478563"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=478562"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=478562"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=478562"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}