Sage Northcutt, all precocious 19 years of him, is considered by some to be a superstar in the making for the Ultimate Fighting Championship.
Though he’s had just one fight in the UFC—and only six career fights as a professional—Northcutt is everywhere you look these days.
Three days prior to his UFC debut in October, he appeared on the bill for the traditional open workouts.
Sure, he was there because the event was taking place in Houston, his hometown, and the promotion wanted to cultivate some buzz around his debut.
But it’s almost unheard of for the UFC to put this much attention on a fighter—hometown or not—who was not only making his promotional debut but doing so in the first fight of the night on the Fight Pass digital streaming service.
Northcutt was there for another reason, though. The UFC clearly sees a potential gold mine in him, and it wanted to begin capitalizing early and often.
A few days later, when he’d finished blitzing the outmatched and out-of-shape Frank Trevino, the hype train went careening on down the tracks.
Many onlookers may make the mistake of chalking Northcutt‘s push up to his good looks, chiseled body or winning smile. There is some truth to the idea that he is a promoter’s dream.
But it is also true that Northcutt is much more than just a pretty face. He is a top-level athlete who has spent a lifetime training for his arrival on the big stage, and overlooking him is a mistake many are already making.
At four years old, Northcutt was already a workout fiend. You’ve probably seen the photo by now: the one of a very young Sage, hands clasped behind his head, abs rippling as a huge grin spreads across his face.
At an age when most kids are consuming candy and binging on fast food, Northcutt was already eating chicken breasts and brown rice and drinking protein shakes to fuel his body for the hundreds of push-ups and sit-ups he did each day.
“People used to say that it wasn’t good for a little kid to be that ripped or to have abs,” his father Mark said in October. “But we made it fun for him to do push-ups and sit-ups.”
His athletic pedigree was developed early by training with his father on an almost-daily basis. They maintain that training schedule even today, working out at a Lifetime Fitness near their Katy, Texas home.
Nearly everything about Northcutt is unorthodox, but especially so when it comes to training. In a sport where focused strength training is often frowned upon, Northcutt and his father are using traditional, basic weightlifting moves, throwing heavy weight around and making it look far too easy.
And it’s true that he is new to mixed martial arts, that he hasn’t had the kind of cage experience many others who are trying to get in the UFC may possess and that he hasn’t had to “pay his dues” by fighting extensively on the regional circuit.
But in reality—even when compared to other fighters with more fights on their professional records—Northcutt will almost always have more martial arts and combat sports experience.
He began training in sport karate at four years old. By age six, he was traveling around the world with Mark and mother Becky to compete in tournaments. He appeared on the cover of numerous karate magazines. There is a room in his Katy house bursting with the many trophies Northcutt collected during his karate career.
He has won 77 world championships. That is not a sign of an underqualified fighter.
Still, cagefighting is a demanding and often brutal sport. Those who are unprepared for the rigors of competition it offers can often find themselves overwhelmed.
But as Northcutt demonstrated in dispatching Trevino, nerves really aren’t a thing for him. He’s calm, cool and collected in the cage, and most of that is owed to a lifetime of competition. The lights may be brighter this time around, but he’s used to them.
Another quality that sets Northcutt apart and—as I detailed in my recent report on what the UFC is doing to stem the tide of injuries affecting the sport—perhaps even makes him the prototypical fighter of the future is this: His mixed martial arts training looks nothing like what you’ll normally see in a fight camp.
For starters, there is no such thing as a traditional fight camp for Northcutt. He does not do heavy sparring in the way that nearly every other fighter in the sport does.
His head coach, Chris Mango, told me in October that Northcutt‘s striking is already so advanced—developed by a lifetime of work—that there’s no need for him to focus on his stand-up game.
Mango and Mark Northcutt also believe it’s useless for Sage to take punishment in training. Save it for the real thing. He doesn’t need to know what a fight feels like—the usual excuse given for the existence of brutal sparring sessions in camps—because he’s been in plenty of them.
If you take just a few minutes and watch film of Northcutt‘s fights or his exhilarating performances during open workouts, you’ll likely agree.
Much of Northcutt‘s training has, thus far, taken place in Katy at the Gracie Barra gym where he’s been a member for years. But recently, he traveled to Tristar in Montreal, the legendary home of former welterweight great Georges St-Pierre and current contender Rory MacDonald.
Northcutt and his father spent a few days there working with head coach Firas Zahabi. Though Northcutt would return home to train in Katy due to college courses at Texas A&M University, he will have Zahabi in his corner on Thursday night when he faces Cody Pfister, and he plans to return to Tristar for training in January.
But the main thing that makes Northcutt so very different—and likely so appealing to the UFC—is his personality.
I should note that I am perhaps biased about Katy, Northcutt‘s hometown, because it is also my hometown. I spent 32 years of my life, give or take a few, living there. The rest of my family (both close and extended) is still there, and I’m sure fate will pull me back there eventually. Sage and I graduated from the same high school.
He was born two months before I graduated, of course, which makes me feel all sorts of sad feelings.
Because of that shared background, I can tell you that Northcutt‘s enjoyment of life is not an act. It is a product of an upbringing surrounded by good people who helped turn him into a bona fide rarity in this sport: a fighter who is not jaded and loves every aspect of being in the UFC.
Take, for example, the unfounded steroid accusations thrown his way by Pfister—filled with understandable anger at the attention being paid to his opponent—in recent days.
Did Northcutt take the opportunity to fire back and continue the war of words, as you’d expect from others in the UFC?
Nope. Not even a little bit.
“That’s funny. And I just want to tell my opponent ‘thank you’ for saying that, because that’s a huge compliment to me,” Northcutt said after his Tuesday open workout at the MGM Grand. “If he thinks so, then that’s very nice that he says that. I’ve actually been tested four times already, drug-tested. Three times by USADA and one time by the Texas boxing commission for the UFC.
“And actually USADA came to my house at six o’clock in the morning and took blood from me and urine, along with being tested throughout high school and sports all the time too. So that’s a big compliment.”
Here is a fighter accused of taking performance-enhancing drugs by his opponent, and he responds by saying it’s a big compliment?
This is the kind of attitude that is nearly unheard of—not just in mixed martial arts but in life. Our natural inclination is to protect ourselves against such threats and accusations. Northcutt deflected them with ease and a smile.
And then there’s his stance on all the hype and hoopla surrounding his second trip to the Octagon, where he checks in as high as a 1-14 favorite over Pfister, according to Odds Shark.
“It’s an awesome feeling,” he said. “It’s actually way better than what the UFC debut was like. Going into the UFC debut, you have to wonder what’s going on, what’s the workout going to be like. It’s just an honor to be at an open workout. I’m just blessed to be here. That sure was fun.”
When you consider all of this, and when you pay close attention, it is easy to understand why UFC President Dana White recently pegged Northcutt (along with Thursday headliner Paige Van Zant) as one of two potential megastars currently on the UFC roster.
He’s an All-American kid raised in a good home. He excels in his school studies. He’s an athletic prodigy, and he’s always smiling.
Oh, and he has—at least thus far—been a thrilling fighter to watch.
It will be a long time before we know if Northcutt can reach the upper echelon of the UFC, or if he can be the superstar White and others (myself included) envision. Maybe he won’t experience the same kind of meteoric rise through the rankings that Conor McGregor did.
But that’s OK. He’s only 19 years old, after all, and rushing him is just about the worst idea in the world.
But if given time to grow, learn and progress up the ladder of competition at an intelligent pace, there is no reason at all that Northcutt couldn’t deliver on all of his potential and become not just a big star but someone the UFC can point to and say, “Do you see this kid? This is what we’re all about.”
Given how many public setbacks the UFC has experienced with out-of-cage incidents, PED failures and other negatives, it is hard to blame it for hanging a few hopes on a happy-go-lucky Texas kid who could eventually be one heck of a fighter.
Jeremy Botter covers mixed martial arts for Bleacher Report. Follow him on Twitter.
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