When Sage Northcutt signed with ONE Championship late last year many fight fans believed the young fighter was going to take his talents to the next level outside of the Octagon.
While the jury is still out, the 23-year-old Northcutt has not gotten off to a good start. In his ONE Championship debut earlier this month, “Super” suffered a brutal 29-second knockout loss to veteran striker Cosmo Alexandre, who was competing in MMA for the first time in nearly three years. The fight happened to take place at 185 pounds so that likely didn’t help Northcutt’s chances.
Making matters worse for Northcutt was the aftermath that Alexandre’s one-punch knockout caused. Not only did “Super” endure a nine-hour surgery to fix eight fractures, but he had to have 30 pieces of bone removed from his face. It was truly a sad scene to witness considering how nice of a guy Sage truly is.
That said, MMA is an unforgiving sport. It’s capable of chewing up and spitting out any fighter at any time. Just ask UFC color commentator Joe Rogan, who recently discussed Northcutt’s knockout loss in his ONE Championship debut.
“Cosmo Alexandre is a world class Muay Thai fighter,” Rogan explained during a recent episode of his JRE MMA Podcast. “He is world class as far as striking, it’s a completely different level, but I guess because it was an MMA fight he was willing to take it. They fought stand up and Sage took that karate stance and the dude circled off to his right and landed that f**king right hand.”
Rogan, who has been around MMA as long as anybody, also questioned Team Northcutt for pitting their young and growing fighter against a proven veteran with devastating finishing ability.
“It’s a terrible matchup, I don’t know why they agreed to let him fight that guy,” said Rogan. “It’s just not smart…Sage is good, he’s very good, but these kinds of losses are terrible for his future because they are mismanagement losses in my opinion.”
Despite the crippling defeat, Northcutt has many years of fighting ahead of him to impress ONE Championship and prove that he has what it takes to become a world champion in MMA. At the very least, this is a learning experience for Northcutt as he now has to rebound from his first career knockout loss.
What say you, Maniacs? Is Rogan right? Was this a bad matchup for Northcutt? Did Team Sage drop the ball?
Sound off!