The best and worst from UFC Fight Night 126

#2 Worst: Did Sage really win that fight?

Sage Northcutt disappointed in his fight with Thibault Gouti

The main card of the show opened with a decision victory for native Texan ‘Super’ Sage Northcutt as he took a close decision over French striker Thibault Gouti. But after watching the fight I’m not so sure he deserved the win. Northcutt may have landed more significant strikes, but he also gave up a lot of cage control, takedowns, and clearly got stunned on about three occasions.

Granted, you could argue that Sage did deserve the nod due to a decent first round and that strike difference, but if that were the case then it was largely down to Gouti’s faulty gameplan – he had Northcutt badly hurt with punches and tried to follow them up with largely ineffective takedowns.

Overall it was somewhat of a disappointing fight, and it wasn’t an impressive performance from Super Sage either. While he’s still young at 21, it’s questionable whether his fighting abilities will ever match up to his athletic ones. He simply doesn’t seem to be improving at a quick rate, and when you consider where the likes of Georges St-Pierre and Jon Jones were at a similar point in their careers – if not ages – then there’s a clear gulf.

Northcutt still has potential but more performances like this, and we could be talking about it as wasted potential.