“His face is in 17 different places. Not only you get knocked out, it’s a life-changing knockout.”
Sage Northcutt’s ONE FC debut at ONE Championship: Enter the Dragon didn’t exactly go as planned.
Northcutt, who was released from the UFC last year, suffered a brutal knockout loss to kickboxing dynamo Cosmo Alexandre, requiring an intensive nine-hour surgery to treat the eight facial fractures he suffered after being walloped by a huge right hand in the first round.
The knockout has caused quite the stir online, and many fighters can’t understand why Northcutt was given such a tough test in his ONE FC promotional debut.
The latest (former) fighter to weigh in is ex-UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub, who blasted ONE Championship for possibly ruining ‘Super’ Sage’s career trajectory.
“You’re a young American prospect that left the UFC to pursue a long career in ONE Championship,” Schaub said on a recent episode of his podcast, per Low Kick MMA’s Abhinav Kini. “His face is in 17 different places. Not only you get knocked out, it’s a life-changing knockout.
“So now his face is fractured, he’s going to be out at least a year, then when he comes back, his confidence is shot. Think he wants to stand with guys now? Then he has to figure things out. You f*cked the trajectory of his career. I hate to say this because ONE Championship has been good to us, good to Mighty Mouse, and it’s obviously on the fighter and it’s up to him to navigate his way through the rankings of fighting, but you f*cked him, ONE Championship. It was a complete mistake for Sage Northcutt to sign with ONE Championship.”
Prior to his devastating knockout loss at Enter the Dragon, Northcutt had won three in a row under the UFC banner. The 23-year-old is 11-3 as a professional fighter.