>>13934380I think going straight to the UFC would’ve worked since they know he’s a potential star and would be feeding him bums until he’s good enough to fight actual contenders.
They did this with current Bantamweight Champ Sean O’Malley, and they’re doing it currently with NCAA champ and Olympic trial team finalist Bo Nickal and it’s going well for him so far.
The only thing is that Nickal and O’Malley fight at lighter weight classes where guys have less knockout power. Stevenson would be fighting at Heavyweight, and that’s a division where even the bums have knockout power if they clip you.
Overall I think he has great MMA potential. Daniel Cormier was only an Olympic silver medalist, and he’s one of the greatest of all time in the sport. Heavyweight is a division full of a lot of heavy hitting bums, and there aren’t any dagestanis in HW (they mostly occupy lighter divisions) and he’ll probably be able to ragdoll anyone in the division.
