UFC Hall of Famer Chris Weidman recently flagged a telling moment from Gable Steveson’s UFC 329 debut that exposed the Olympic gold medalist’s inexperience in MMA grappling.
As per the former UFC middleweight champion, Steveson briefly got caught in a guillotine choke, panicked, and bailed out of the exchange entirely rather than working through it.
Weidman shared the assessment on Deep Waters, and he made clear that the reaction is common among elite wrestlers new to the sport. Steveson stopped Elisha Ellison by first-round knockout on July 11 at heavyweight, winning without leaning on the discipline that made him famous.
He shot one takedown. An Olympic gold medalist, he shot one take down,” Weidman said. “He got into a guillotine for a second, he kind of panicked. Which makes me think he is still raw. You’ll see that with wrestlers when they first start fighting. They just think they can take everybody down.
Weidman continued:
They get in on a shot beautifully and then they feel a guillotine and they panic. They panic and just get the hell out of there. As he gets better, as he gets some of this greenness out of him, I think we’ll see him lean into those takedowns and not be afraid of the guillotine.
Why Weidman’s Read Carries Weight
Weidman is a former middleweight champion and a two-time NCAA Division I All-American, so his comments on adapting high-level wrestling to MMA carry more weight than most. His central point was not that Steveson has a unique flaw, but that his submission defense and in-between grappling transitions are still developing.
The finish itself came via punches at 2:31 of Round 1, and multiple outlets described it as a crushing knockout. Ellison is not officially credited with a submission attempt on UFC Stats, though the brief guillotine threat is what drew Weidman’s eye. It is worth noting the “panic” framing is analytical opinion rather than anything logged in the official bout data.
Steveson, a Tokyo 2020 freestyle gold medalist, entered the sport as a heavily hyped crossover prospect and carried enormous expectations into the cage. He has trained alongside Jon Jones, a partnership aimed at rounding out his striking and submission game rather than relying on his wrestling base alone.
