Gabi Butler. WWE
On to a new sport! Cheer star Gabi Butler is trading in her gym mats for the wrestling ring as she joins World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE), Us Weekly can confirm.
Butler, 24, gained national recognition after appearing in the Netflix series and became a fan favorite. The show followed the award-winning Navarro College cheerleading program and their coach Monica Aldama as they prepared to compete at the NCA College Nationals in Daytona, Florida. Butler was part of the college squad for the 2019-2020 and 2020-2021 seasons and was also a student at Weber State University in Utah as of 2021.
It appeared that several students were done with their time at the Texas community college at the end of season 1 but Aldama, 50, explained to Us in January 2020 that Navarro doesn’t “follow your typical NCAA rules like the other sport.”
“For NCA [National Cheer Association], which is the company that we compete with for competition, you have five years of eligibility, and three of those can be at a junior college,” she told Us at the time.
Before her time in competitive cheerleading, Butler was involved in gymnastics from the age of 8 years old. She then dove into the world of cheerleading as she competed for the California All-Stars SMOED (aka “small” and “coed”) and was featured on AwesomenessTV’s YouTube series Cheerleaders from 2012 to 2014.
When she’s not filming the docuseries, the TV personality films videos for her Youtube channel where she shows off different cheerleading stunts and gymnastic tricks.
Over the summer, the athlete spent most of her time touring the U.S. with the Cheer Live tour but managed to take some time to immerse herself into the wrestling world. In July, she attended the WWE’s SummerSlam in Nashville sparking her connection to the sport.
“It’s goin down here in Nashville at SUMMER SLAM💥👊🏽🔥💪🏽,” she wrote via Instagram at the time. “@wwe thank you so much for the amazing night. It was so cool seeing it in person for the first time. Truly something I will never forget… met some amazing people and made some new friends 🤍💕.”
While the gymnast does not have any wrestling experience, she does consider the sport to be similar to her cheerleading background with its competitive and performative nature.
Butler is set to train at WWE’s Performance Center in Orlando and will attend some of the biggest events in the sport.