Sage Northcutt, ONE Battle Night time 10 ceremonial weigh-in Credit score: Eddie Regulation/Cageside Press
Sage Northcutt’s tenure with ONE Championship, marred by harm and inactivity, has come to an finish.
Northcutt (12-3) was a budding star for the UFC when, in 2018, he jumped ship to rival promotion ONE Championship as a free agent, on the power of a 6-2 file and on a three-fight win streak on the time. His debut in opposition to Cosmo Alexandre in 2019 was an unmitigated catastrophe, nevertheless, with Northcutt knocked out and left struggling facial fractures.
He was then hospitalized with COVID-19, cancelling a deliberate comeback in opposition to Shinya Aoki in 2021 as the results of the viral illness lingered.
In 2023, Northcutt lastly stepped into the ONE Championship cage for the second time, submitting the little-known Ahmed Mujtaba with a heel hook to assert a Efficiency of the Night time bonus.
Northcutt was scheduled to face Aoki as soon as once more in March of this yr, in Tokyo. Visa troubles noticed him pulled from that bout. And on Friday, each fighter and promotion confirmed that they had amicably parted methods.
“Excited for 2025 and looking forward to having some big fights,” Northcutt wrote on social media, with out specifying the place these fights would possibly come.
In a short assertion on their official web site quoted by Northcutt, ONE officers wrote merely “ONE Championship and Sage Northcutt have mutually agreed to his release from the organization. ONE wishes Northcutt the best in his future endeavors.”
Earlier this month, Northcutt’s declaration of assist for the proposed UFC antitrust lawsuit settlement got here to gentle. In it, Northcutt said that he “enthusiastically supported” the settlement, in addition to saying that “As a professional fighter, I have only had one fight in the last five plus years and have not earned a steady income. Receiving settlement funds now would truly be life-changing money for me and for other members of the class. It would put me on firmer financial footing and allow me to purchase a home near my training camp in Northern California.”
