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Fans were no doubt shocked when, just moments before he was set to walk to the ONE Championship for a fight with Japanese legend Shinya ‘Tobikan Judan’ Aoki, American mixed martial arts phenom ‘Super’ Sage Northcutt mysteriously pulled out of the scheduled matchup.
After all, Northcutt had been in town for over a week and couldn’t help but talk up an absolute storm about how he was going to knock Aoki out in the first round. All of this, only to prove gun shy on fight day and not even compete at all.
As a result, it was former ONE bantamweight MMA world champion ‘Hands of Stone’ John Lineker who was tapped as an on-the-day replacement for Northcutt. Sadly for Lineker, it was a disastrous evening, as Aoki needed mere minutes to slap on his patented face crank to tap the Brazilian out.
Still, the question remained. Why did Sage Northcutt pull out of his fight with Shinya Aoki all of a sudden?
The 27-year-old Evolve MMA / Team Alpha Male athlete quickly squashed rumors and issued a statement via his official Instagram account.
‘Super' Sage wrote:
“I’m sorry to all my fans and to my opponent Shinya Aoki for not fighting tonight. There were some last-minute visa issues with two of my coaches and they are on their way back to the US right now. One Championship offered to help by giving me a world champion Jiu Jitsu coach for a replacement, but not having my coaches that I trained my whole camp with out there with me to compete against arguably the worlds greatest MMA submission artist of all time wasn’t going to be best for me. Thank you Chatri and One Championship for trying your best to make things work at the last minute. Again I apologize to Shinya and everyone that was tuning in. I know that One 165 is an incredible card with incredible world class talent that everybody will still enjoy.”
See the post below:
What do you think of this? Sound off.
What’s next for Sage Northcutt?
It seems unclear when we will see Sage Northcutt back in action, but ONE Championship has plenty of major events left throughout the year to feature the 27-year-old. It was an unfortunate situation.
Can’t blame the guy for not wanting to step in the ring with an absolute killer like Aoki, who is also a former multi-time ONE lightweight MMA world champion.
Stay tuned to Sportskeeda MMA for all the news and updates surrounding Sage Northcutt’s next fight.
