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When news broke that Gable Steveson was released from WWE a few months removed from his final match on an NXT live show, it got folks around the professional wrestling space talking about what went wrong for the former Olympic gold medalist, including Booker T, the man who called his efforts in Orlando.
Did Booker see something about Steveson's wrestling that simply didn't work? Or could it have been that fans just straight-up didn't like the former Minnesota Gopher, with the crowd at The Great American Bash booing darn near everything he did in the ring and somehow turning Baron Corbin babyface in the process?
Well, on his Hall of Fame podcast, Booker explained that the issue was one of commitment, with Steveson always seemingly having one foot out of the door even while working the Live Event circuit in NXT and WWE.
“As far as the build-up, you could see that, with what people were expecting to see from Gable Steveson,” Booker T explained via Fightful. “Just because he had the look, he had everything you check off as far as the box goes, he had all of that. For it not to pan out, I think it was him not really buying all in, not really saying, ‘Man, I'm really gonna throw everything into doing this and being the best at it.' He had one foot in the door and one foot out, let's just say that. I think that's what it was more than anything. Could he have cut it and really pulled this thing off? Probably. But I think that wrestling bug was still in his system, and it was hard for him to really get it out. It seemed like he still had something to prove. There again, just having one foot in and one foot out, I think that was his problem.”
On paper, Steveson truly seemed like a perfect prospect for WWE, as he had the Olympic pedigree, the pubic recognition, and the size needed to work against top-tier stars as a certified babyface hero. And yet, when your unpopularity – for very real reasons – is so profound that it turned Corbin babyface, well, it's easy to see why WWE pulled the plug on this project, especially as other similar cases like Von Wagner were handed their walking papers too.
Zilla Fatu wants to Booker T and the family business in WWE.
Speaking of Booker T, one of the buzziest frequent contributors to his Reality of Wrestling promotion, Zilla Fatu, recently sat down for an interview with Joey Franchize to discuss his spot as a member of the actual Bloodline as the son of WWE Hall of Famer Umaga. For Fatu, his family tree is an honor, as he's been afforded a chance to learn from some of the best in the business.
“It feels good, Uce. It feels good. I'm happy. I feel like we all deserve it because I got people that came before us. The people that came before me, you gotta give them their flowers, like Afa and Sika, like Snuka and The Rock and Peter Maivia,” Zilla Fatu explained via Fightful. “Those guys really started this foundation for our family. Then obviously The Rock, Rikishi, my uncle, [Yokozuna], they all took it to a whole nother level. Then you got Roman [Reigns], The Usos, The Bloodline, they taking it to a whole nother level. So it's really a family business, for real, and I'm just so happy and blessed to be a part of this. I'm coming up too. Like I said, I'm on the indies, but I'm not in no rush.”
Asked about his long-term goals in wrestling, Fatu stated he wanted to keep the Bloodline Pipeline going to WWE, as it would be weird to be the first Fatu or Anoa'i in AEW.
“WWE, uce. That's the main one. Like I said, back to what I was saying with my family, my family got a long history with WWE,” Fatu noted. “So at the same time, I don't want to be the first Fatu or Anoaʻi to go to AEW. I don't want to break that cycle. But it just gotta make sense because everybody's journey is different. My journey's different. My story's way different from Solo's, from The Usos', from Roman and Jacob [Fatu]. So my story, I got a whole nother chapter. I'm sitting on a whole nother side of the table [laughs].”
Would it be interesting to see how AEW would book a performer like Zilla Fatu, with the promotion potentially finding him a manager and booking him with the Gates of Agony now that they've been freed up from Swerve Strickland? Totally but hey, if WWE wants to keep their connection to the Anoa'i-Fatu family alive and Fatu fits their standards, why not bring him to the PC to see how it works out, especially with Jacob Fatu set to join The Bloodline on television at some point in the future.
