Sage Northcutt still hasn’t returned to full training more than a year on from his devastating 29-second KO by Cosmo Alexandre on his ONE Championship debut. The former UFC star was left face down on the canvas, and with eight facial fractures , after one punch from 38-year-old Brazilian kick-boxing veteran Alexandre (8-1 MMA) in May 2019. Northcutt (11-3) needed nine hours of surgery in Singapore, and revealed his nerves were “almost sliced off” by the overhand right from “Good Boy”. Northcutt told SCMP MMA this month he plans to move down two divisions to featherweight, and admitted he “made a mistake” fighting Alexandre at welterweight. But Alexandre thinks the 24-year-old American will struggle to make the weight. He himself had trouble getting down to lightweight, suffering the only knockout loss of his career against former ONE kick-boxing champ Nieky Holzken in 2018. “Maybe it would be hard,” Alexandre told SCMP MMA’s Post Fight Podcast. “I don’t know how he does that, how he cuts weight, but 70 kilos is 155 [pounds], I think he cannot do that, that’s too low. I know how I felt when I did 77 kilos, it was hard already, and he is not a skinny guy. He is strong with a lot of muscle. I don’t know how he can make 70 kilos. If he does 77 I think he’ll be OK, it will be good for him. He can be strong.” Given the severity of his injuries, UFC president Dana White suggested Northcutt should retire because “this sport isn’t for him” , while there was plenty of criticism of the match-up including from Joe Rogan . “I never like to see that [Northcutt’s injuries], it’s just my job, I just wanna go there and win,” Alexandre said. “I don’t wanna hurt nobody. The way it happened, I don’t know why he was fighting. He doesn’t need to fight – he was doing some movies already, working as an actor. I don’t know, it’s hard to say because if it is in his heart to be a fighter, I can’t say anything. But in his position I wouldn’t fight, I wouldn’t. Cosmo squashes beef with ONE Championship; will sign new deal “I saw what Dana said. But it is hard. For me it’s easy to say that because I have 104 fights in just kick-boxing and Muay Thai so I’m kinda tired – ‘Oh, I have to travel again, cut weight, train hard’. For me to say that, ‘Oh no, you just need to stop fighting’, it’s easy to say that. But he has like 10 fights? Of course, he wants to fight more, that’s kinda normal. I wouldn’t fight if I had the opportunities he has, working in the movies, doing all this stuff.” Alexandre is still slightly aggrieved that ONE did not promote him more after his huge victory against Northcutt. He has not fought since their May 2019 bout, and publicly called on ONE to release him last week before revealing to SCMP MMA he has finally agreed terms on a new deal . “For me it’s like Sage, he went to the company and was a big name already, everybody talked just about him when I fought him, but I don’t know why,” he said. “If you see his record it’s not that good. The guy has six, seven fights [14]. I have more than 100. “I am a three-time world Muay Thai champion, four-time kick-boxing world champion. So why didn’t they promote me like him. Why? Because he has more followers on Instagram? It’s weird. I respect it but I don’t understand. It’s OK, this way is the way. It’s hard to explain. I have no idea why.”