Outside Source
Steveson won the freestyle wrestling gold in the 125 kilogram weight class at the 2020 Olympics in Japan. Steveson revealed that Jones invited him to a training camp while preparing for a title defense against Stipe Miocic at UFC 295 in 2023. However, Steveson left for an unsuccessful attempt at an NFL career, and Jones was injured, leading to the cancellation of the fight against Miocic. Jones invited Steveson again when he was rebooked to fight Miocic at UFC 309 in 2024. Steveson obliged, and the two immediately hit it off.
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“I know Jon from [Instagram]. He sent me a DM, he sent me his number,” Steveson said on “The Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “And if you know Jon, he doesn’t answer his phone worth anything… He said, ‘Call me.’ So I called him. And this was before the first Stipe fight. He said, ‘I wanted to come practice with us, I want a wrestling partner.’ I left it to play football… Skip. We go, and he’s like, ‘I want you to come for the second camp.’ And me and Jon hit it off like that. We hit it off immediately.”
Setting An Example
Steveson (2-0) revealed that the training camp with Jones (28-1) inspired him to switch to MMA. While Steveson had good guidance throughout his wrestling career, he needed someone to show him the path to MMA. Upon closely observing Jones throughout the camp, Steveson knew he wanted to be like “Bones.”
“I needed somebody to kind of engrave [MMA] in me… When I saw Jon, I saw that drive… I really sat back and watched his mentality, how he want about a lot of things, how he talked to people, how he greeted people, how he walked, how he punched, maybe how he looked when he was in pocket, when he needed to get out, when he rested his hands, I saw everything. And I was like, ‘Wow, this guy is a superstar.’… I really saw him and I was like, ‘Damn. I wanna be that.’ And that kind of flipped my switch right there.”
Steveson has picked up two stoppage wins since making his MMA debut last year, along with a victory at Dirty Boxing. Despite coming from a wrestling background, Stevenson has stopped all of his opponents on the feet.
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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