{"id":609494,"date":"2026-04-17T04:29:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:29:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/609494\/"},"modified":"2026-04-17T04:29:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-17T04:29:09","slug":"no-doubts-gable-steveson-can-become-a-world-champion-in-mma-per-pfl-chicago-victor-and-former-teammate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/609494\/","title":{"rendered":"“No doubts [Gable Steveson] can become a world champion” in MMA, per PFL Chicago victor and former teammate"},"content":{"rendered":"

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<\/a> at the PFL Chicago card.<\/p>\n

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\u2019s story in an even deeper sense, when asked for his thoughts on what the former Olympic wrestling medalist\u2019s ceiling in MMA could be, with many touting him as an eventual UFC champion, McKee said [via Bowks Talking Bouts<\/a>],<\/p>\n

\u201cOh, I mean, I don\u2019t doubt it. I mean, I\u2019ve been wrestling with Gable since we were like in middle school. So, I\u2019ve been on plenty; dozens of Team Minnesota teams with him, Team USA teams with him. Yeah, so I\u2019ve grown up. I mean, our high schools were rivals. So we were rivals during the regular wrestling season and then we\u2019d be on like the same teams together during the freestyle season. Yeah and then obviously we were on the Gophers together.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Gable Steveson is \u201d the most athletic person I\u2019ve ever seen for his size\u201d, per McKee<\/p>\n

Further expounding upon his thoughts on Gable Steveson\u2019s capacity to thrive in mixed martial arts, McKee continued [via Bowks Talking Bouts<\/a>],<\/p>\n

\u201cBut yeah, he\u2019s just so athletic. He\u2019s the most athletic person I\u2019ve ever seen for his size. Just the natural ability that he has and it doesn\u2019t even matter what he\u2019s doing. Like we used to play handball to warm up in college and like he\u2019d 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.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gable Steveson is seen by many as someone who will be a heavyweight champion in mixed martial arts…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":609495,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,49666,229750,638,1863,225694,82,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-609494","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-gable-steveson","12":"tag-mitch-mckee","13":"tag-mma","14":"tag-pfl","15":"tag-pfl-chicago","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609494","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=609494"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/609494\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/609495"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=609494"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=609494"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=609494"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}