{"id":394661,"date":"2021-09-17T08:53:57","date_gmt":"2021-09-17T15:53:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/?p=394661"},"modified":"2021-09-17T08:53:57","modified_gmt":"2021-09-17T15:53:57","slug":"gable-steveson-says-he-wished-dana-white-tried-harder-to-sign-him-to-the-ufc","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/gable-steveson-says-he-wished-dana-white-tried-harder-to-sign-him-to-the-ufc\/","title":{"rendered":"Gable Steveson says he wished Dana White tried harder to sign him to the UFC"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Olympic gold medal wrestler Gable Steveson says that he wished Dana White tried harder to sign him to the UFC when he was shopping around.<\/p>\n<p>Following his impressive performance at the Tokyo Olympic games, Steveson was pursued by several companies including the UFC and the WWE, where he eventually signed. However, while speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmafighting.com\/2021\/9\/16\/22672529\/gable-steveson-anticipated-move-to-wwe-but-wished-dana-white-tried-little-harder-for-him-to-join-ufc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">The MMA Hour&#8217;s Ariel Helwani<\/a>, Steveson admitted that he was hoping White would have tried harder to sign him. Although Steveson is happy to join the WWE, he still wanted to see White make a stronger pitch to bring him to the UFC.<\/p>\n<p id=\"nHNMn6\">\u201cI was hoping that Dana would have come a lot stronger. I was hoping that he would push the pace a little more. I would love to fight. I\u2019m not scared of fighting. I\u2019m not scared of getting punched. I\u2019m not scared of going out there and losing in front of a big crowd or winning in front of a big crowd. It doesn\u2019t matter to me. I go out there to entertain people and for me, myself, to do something I love. I mean I love fighting and I love WWE. I love both,&#8221; Steveson said. \u201cI wish Dana came a little harder. I wish he would have had more push on me to go that way but that time is up for now. I\u2019m 100 percent with Vince McMahon and that team. I\u2019m excited to be where I\u2019m at.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>As far as the rumor that the UFC wanted Steveson to compete on the Contender Series before signing him to a UFC contract, Stevenson denied those rumors floating around.<\/p>\n<p id=\"fN9t5o\">\u201cI\u2019ve seen a lot of tweets that Dana wanted me in Contender Series but I don\u2019t even know because me and Dana only had a couple of text messages saying like \u2018hey come to Vegas\u2019 but I was at SummerSlam and I couldn\u2019t make it to him. I didn\u2019t ditch him. We barely spoke. I know he wanted me to come,&#8221; Steveson said. &#8220;I don\u2019t know where the Contender Series thing came about on the news and stuff. We barely spoke and Vince had the upper hand. I\u2019ve been knowing WWE longer than UFC so I wanted to start my path there. I had no clue about (the Contender Series).\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Do you wish Dana White signed <a href=\"http:\/\/staging.tcpcharms.com\/bjpenn\/mma-news\/ufc\/henry-cejudo-explains-why-gable-steveson-is-a-legitimate-threat-to-jon-jones-and-francis-ngannou\/\">Gable Steveson<\/a> to the UFC?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Olympic gold medal wrestler Gable Steveson says that he wished Dana White tried harder to sign him to the UFC when he was shopping around. Following his impressive performance at the Tokyo Olympic games, Steveson was pursued by several companies including the UFC and the WWE, where he eventually signed. However, while speaking to The [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":54477,"featured_media":393718,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false},"categories":[10112,39610],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v19.7 (Yoast SEO v19.14) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>Gable Steveson says he wished Dana White tried harder to sign him to the UFC | BJPenn.com<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Olympic gold medal wrestler Gable Steveson says that he wished Dana White tried harder to sign him to the UFC when he was shopping around.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" 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