ONE Championship’s Sage Northcutt takes inspiration from Cody Garbrandt comeback KO at UFC 250
- ‘Super’ Sage thinks Alpha Male teammate Garbrandt ‘absolutely’ can win back the UFC bantamweight belt after stunning knockout
- ‘Everybody loses a fight some time – one step back temporarily, that’s nothing,’ says Northcutt, who looks to bounce back from debut ONE defeat
A lot of people had given up on Cody Garbrandt.
“I went from top of world, 11-0, world champ at 25 years old – to a three-fight skid. I wanna thank everyone for sticking with me,” the former UFC bantamweight champion said after securing a devastating KO against Raphael Assuncao at UFC 250 to officially stop the rot.
Sage Northcutt knows the feeling. The 24-year-old was once one of the UFC’s hottest young prospects. A high-profile switch to Asia’s ONE Championship was meant to herald big things for the American, but he was knocked out in 29 seconds on his debut – conspicuously, at 185 pounds – by Cosmo Alexandre, with his face fractured in eight places.
But training with Garbrandt (12-3) out of Team Alpha Male in California, Northcutt is using “No Love” as his inspiration as he plots a comeback of his own, two divisions down at featherweight where he feels he is most natural.
“Oh man, Cody’s so talented, he’s awesome,” Northcutt told SCMP MMA’s Post Fight Podcast. “He’s really, really incredible. That was a crazy knockout, right at the buzzer.
“He’s so good, the way he came back and just got that knockout, I see how hard he trains. When I’m at Team Alpha Male you get to be around that environment, train with the champ. Being around them all the time, him, Uriah Faber, all the great guys, it’s hard for them not to rub off on you. You get to learn from the things they’ve been through, whether it’s been hard or something great, you get to experience it through them.”
Northcutt thinks Garbrandt “absolutely” can get his hands back on the bantamweight title, which was taken from him by former Alpha Male teammate TJ Dillashaw in November 2017. Another TKO loss to Dillashaw followed, and then Garbrandt was knocked out by Pedro Munhoz with nine seconds left in a first round where both fighters abandoned all restraint and just started swinging.
It was a more calm, composed Garbrandt who left Brazilian veteran Assuncao (27-8) face down on the canvas. Now the American has abandoned a planned move down in weight of his own, in favour of trying to reclaim what was his, and to shut up the doubters.
“There’s always people like that [who criticise], but he’s young, he’s in shape, he trains so hard,” Northcutt said. “He definitely can get the title back. Everybody loses a fight some time. Very rarely is there anybody that goes undefeated because at some point there’s somebody who has a better day than you, or you might have an off day.
“So one fight, one step back temporarily, that’s nothing. He’s gonna come back – he just did.”
