It took a while but Sage Northcutt is finally back.
After four years away from MMA, the former UFC star is set to make his return at a ONE Championship event on May 5th. Northcutt will take on Ahmed Mujtaba in the promotion’s U.S. debut.
Ring Rust?
‘Super’ Sage hopes that the MMA myth of ‘ring rust’ won’t affect him in his comeback fight following a rather long layoff since his brutal knockout loss to Cosmo Alexandre in 2019,
“A lot of people say ring rust. I’m hoping that’s not the case with me,” Northcutt told Middle Easy. “I feel great. I’ve been staying sharp, I’ve been training hard. Looking back since my last fight a little over three and a half years ago, I was healing up for like a good year and a half. Plus, I was healing up and then I was scheduled to actually fight Shinya Aoki. So, I was training a full-blown training camp just a couple weeks before happened to get sick with Covid. That happened, but I’ve been training full-time.
“So, even all this time since then, I’ve been out here training at Team Alpha Male, even back in Texas. I was training at 10th Planet out there, a bunch of wrestlers, good grapplers, some of the best teams surrounding me. So I’ve been staying sharp.”
‘I Have So Much Potential’
Northcutt has had much spotlight on him since first stepping into the Octagon back in 2015. Even after all of these years, many are shocked to find out that the UFC veteran is only 26 years old. Still at such a young age, Sage believes he has a long road ahead of him in the fight game.
“Being only 26 years old, I’m still so young,” Northcutt continued. “I came into the sport very young and being only 26 right now, I feel like I have my whole entire career ahead of me. So, I feel like I’m just getting started and that’s an age that a lot of people are just coming to MMA and just getting into the sport. I’m super happy being 26 and I feel like I have a whole career ahead of me.”
“I heard a lot of different fighters, different champions say you really don’t even hit your prime until you’re like 31, 32, 33 years old. I’m still so far away from that, too. So, I feel so young still at 26 and I feel like I have so much potential. One of the biggest things is I feel like, like getting to show what I’m capable of. I know I didn’t get to show when my first fight with ONE, but getting to show what I’m capable of getting to show all the hard work, all the training that I put in, that’s something that I’m really, really gonna try to do out there. Hopefully it goes great.”
Catch ‘Super’ Sage back in action on May 5th.