After being drafted onto RAW two years ago, shortly after signing with WWE on an NIL deal, Gable Steveson is finally set to make his WWE debut at NXT's The Great American Bash, where he will wrestle Baron Corbin in what is shaping up to very fun effort for the fans in Austin, Texas and on Peacock.

That's right, after announcing his decision LeBron James-style on NXT, Steveson is forgoing his NCAA eligibility and his pursuit of a second Olympic Gold medal to instead set his sights on becoming the next Kurt Angle, even if such an effort is a whole lot easier said than done… or is he? That's right, while Steveson announced his intentions to stick around in WWE and make Orlando his temporary home, he hasn't totally taken his toe out of the amateur wrestling world as, in a series of texts with Rachel Blount of the Star Tribune, Steveson let it be known that though he is excited to compete for WWE, he also still has a passion for Greco-Roman wrestling.

In a text Wednesday, Steveson wrote that amateur wrestling is “my passion,” and “my fire still burns for it … I still have the year of [college] eligibility, and always will be ready to compete for USA.”

”Very excited,” Steveson wrote in a text message. “First time people are seeing me. Thankful for the opportunity.”

Could Steveson change his mind after this match and go back to Minnesota, transfer to Iowa, or even just take a step back to focus on his Olympic preparations? Most definitely. Alternatively, could Steveson take the page from Logan Paul's playbook and become a part-timer, working for the promotion around Premium Live Events while taking the fall off to pursue other opportunities? That's an option too. But for now, Steveson is focused on Suplexing the you-know-what out of Baron Corbin, and frankly, that is a noble pursuit.

Shawn Michaels explicitly targeted Gable Steveson for NXT.

So, whether Gable Steveson wrestles one match or 20 before the end of the 2023 calendar year, one question sits above all others: how did Shawn Michaels get the “Olympic Hero 2.0” in NXT?

Fortunately, fans got their answer during the NXT The Great American Bash media call, as HBK noted that process by which he secured his most exciting new prospect's services after being viewed as an immediate main roster performer early in his career.

“He’s been here in the WWE for a while. He’s been down here training for a bit. I will be straightforward and honest. He had been here, and I wanted to know, ‘Hey, I want to do something with this guy. I want to get him into the mix. Can I do that?’ There are sometimes, some people fall into different genres, different rules. I don’t ask a lot of questions, to be perfectly honest, but he is someone that I felt like, ‘if we’re going to do something with him, let’s do it.’ Perhaps, it was something that slid off someone’s desk, so I brought it up, and I got the go-ahead. Maybe a little abrupt, but I wanted to throw him into the deep end, and let’s see how this is going to go. There is only one way that people learn how to do this stuff, and that’s by getting in the ring and doing it night after night, week after week, month after month,” Steveson said via Fightful.

“He’s an incredibly talented, intelligent, young man, so let’s start getting him to work. Following in the footsteps of somebody like Kurt Angle, I want to get to there right away and see if I can become as good as Kurt was or perhaps surpass him. That was a trigger I wanted to know if I could pull, and I got the green light, so I’m doing it. We’re very excited about what we can bring to the table in NXT. He’s going to be out there with a veteran in Baron Corbin. Baron, absolutely, is not going to make it easy on him. He is, literally, a shark who smells blood. Gable has had a lot of big moments, so I don’t think the moment is going to be bigger than him. We will see how he adjusts because this isn’t what he’s done before. He doesn’t seem to be intimidated by the challenge.”

Though Steveson's WWE debut may not be as high-profile and exciting as some may have initially assumed, as it looked like he was going to be getting the Ronda Rousey treatment a few years back, in the end, getting the 23-year-old reps against NXT talent, at least for a time, is a great way to set him up for long-term success, even if his exact career trajectory remains a bit of a mystery.