Olympic gold medalist Tamyra Mensah-Stock signs with WWE

After winning gold at the 2020 Summer Olympics in Tokyo (which didn’t take place until 2021 because of the pandemic), Tamyra Mensah-Stock joined fellow amateur wrestling gold medalist Gable Steveson for an appearance at SummerSlam.

Unlike Steveson, however, Mensah-Stock was not about to sign a WWE contract — despite making it clear that was a goal of hers.

Now, that’s changed. Almost two years after she became the first-ever Black woman to win an Olympic gold medal in freestyle wrestling, Mensah-Stock is a WWE Superstar. ESPN reports she started at the Performance Center in Orlando on Monday (May 1), telling our old colleague Marc Raimondi her goal is to make it to the main roster within a year.

The 30 year old from Texas continued her amateur career after the Olympics. She finished third in the 2021 World Championships, but “didn’t want to end [her] career on that note”. So she entered the 2022 edition, and won gold there. That re-inspired her to try pro wrestling:

“I wiped the floor with everybody, and I was like, ‘Man, this is not fun anymore. I need a change.’ Something in the back of my head that’s just been itching at me, a dream of mine for I don’t know how long. I just wanted to be in the WWE.”

While she also jokingly admitted, “I really just don’t want to make weight anymore, let’s just be honest,” Mensah-Stock also talked about what drew her to the scripted version of her sport:

“I love watching the athletes just in the ring, just going what they do best. I just see their personalities just shine through the television, and I see their strength. Just everything about them resembles me, and I’ve just wanted to be a part of that.”

Now she is, as the third gold medalist to sign with WWE. Time will tell is her path is more like Kurt Angle’s than Steveson’s (who is currently training for another Olympic run) has been.