{"id":39,"date":"2026-04-20T19:55:41","date_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:55:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/?p=39"},"modified":"2026-04-20T19:55:41","modified_gmt":"2026-04-20T19:55:41","slug":"who-will-gable-stevenson-fight","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/?p=39","title":{"rendered":"Who will Gable Stevenson fight?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\">&#8220;It&#8217;s a different level in the UFC&#8221; says the UFC boss. <\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>So who will <a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gable_Steveson\">Gable Stevenson<\/a> compete against in his UFC debut? Dana seems to think that the UFC will be wise in their potential opponent selection. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Gable Steveson isn\u2019t going to be rushed into a tough matchup before Dana White is confident he\u2019s ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That\u2019s why the <strong>Olympic gold medalist <\/strong>is expected to face someone with a similar level of experience in his Octagon debut later this year. That approach clashes with some of the more \u201cwild\u201d predictions floating around, but history shows that White and his team prefer giving high-profile heavyweights a more manageable first fight.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201c<strong>CM Punk fought here, we\u2019ll find somebody,\u201d<\/strong> White said at the UFC Winnipeg press conference. \u201cI don\u2019t know if we go after a Top 15 guy. The UFC jitters are real. It doesn\u2019t matter what you\u2019ve done before\u2014this is a different level. Our matchmakers will figure out the right opponent based on where we think he\u2019s at and what he\u2019s capable of.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In other words, the UFC isn\u2019t looking to jeopardize Steveson\u2019s long-term potential by matching him up too quickly with established heavyweights like Tallison Teixeira or Shamil Gaziev. (Though, to be fair, the division isn\u2019t exactly stacked.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Gable_Steveson\">Steveson,<\/a> 25, currently holds a 3\u20130 record in MMA, along with a 1\u20130 mark in dirty boxing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>\u270d\ufe0f @robbie<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>@robbietalksmma<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Remember we are always watching the fights live over on YouTube : https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@watchingfights<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s a different level in the UFC&#8221; says the UFC boss. So who will Gable Stevenson compete against in his UFC debut? Dana seems to think that the UFC will be wise in their potential opponent selection. Gable Steveson isn\u2019t&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":40,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[12,2,13,5,4,3],"class_list":["post-39","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-mma-news","tag-gable-stevenson","tag-mma","tag-olympics","tag-robbietalksmma","tag-ufc","tag-watchingfights"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=39"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":41,"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39\/revisions\/41"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/40"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=39"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=39"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/watchingfights.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=39"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}