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WWE star Gable Steveson, 22, undergoes treatment for heart defect which stalled wrestling training-Alistair McGeorge-Entertainment – Metro
The Olympic gold medallist is finally kicking on with his training.
Gable Steveson is training for his move into pro wrestling (Picture: WWE/Getty)
Olympic gold medallist Gable Steveson has finally started his WWE training after undergoing treatment for a rare heart defect.
The 22-year-old wrestler – who won gold for the United States in Tokyo last year – was signed to a unique deal with the company a year ago but updates on his training progress had been scarce.
Now, Steveson has revealed he had an ablation performed on his heart last month to treat Wolff-Parkinson-White (WPW) syndrome, which is present at birth and causes the heart to beat abnormally fast for periods of time due to an extra electrical pathway.
He told ESPN: ‘We’re just excited to get this journey started, it’s been a long road to get to this point… I feel that I’m capable of being in that top spot and I feel that I’m capable of handling that position in the right way.’
The condition was discovered last year before he wrestled at the Olympics, but he didn’t undergo treatment until medical staff at WWE started the process and guided him, pointing him towards top cardiologists to treat the condition.
The process itself took several months, and in September he underwent an ablation, which uses small burns of freezes to cause scarring inside the heart, which in turns breaks up electrical signals to maintain a regular heart rhythm.
Gable Steveson got physical with Chad Gable at WrestleMania 38 (Picture: WWE)
WWE legend and boss Paul ‘Triple H’ Levesque added: ‘We’re glad to see that Gable is healthy and training full time at our Performance Center in Orlando. WWE takes pride in our best-in-class medical team which guided Gable through this process to ensure that he has a long, healthy career with WWE.’
Now, Steveson is focused on ‘hammering out wrestling’ with other WWE stars as he looks to ‘diversify’ himself with his amateur wrestling background, and combining that with the entertainment aspect
‘I think right now, a big thing for me is taking in everything and being like a sponge and soaking everything in and just listening, keeping my ears open, keep my eyes open, and at the end of the day, if you do that, you can only go forward,’ he said.
Current United States Champion Bobby Lashley – who has his own amateur wrestling background and has fought in MMA – previously acknowledged Steveson’s credentials and pointed to the likes of Brock Lesnar, Shelton Benjamin and Kurt Angle as perfect examples of transitioning to the WWE from combat sport.
‘He does have the building blocks. An amateur wrestling background is something that is definitely, I believe, respected in our business,’ he exclusively told Metro.co.uk. ‘His only transition is to get the respect of the guys who took a different route… He’s been wrestling for a long time.’
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