The first live event held by ONE Championship in the United States featured a number of exciting sequences of events that were captured on highlight reels as well as compelling narratives. Sage Northcutt’s performance, however, was the one that ONE Championship Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong cited as being the most inspirational to him.
After a layoff of four years and a disastrous finish to his ONE Championship debut at ONE: Enter The Dragon in May 2019, Northcutt made his comeback on Friday, May 5, at ONE Fight Night 10. This marked Northcutt’s first bout since his ONE Championship debut.
During that difficult time, the male athlete who competed for Evolve MMA and Team Alpha had to deal with multiple surgeries as well as a widespread epidemic.
However, he was able to successfully navigate his way out of that difficult phase, as he finished his lightweight fight against Ahmed Mujtaba with a devastating heel hook at the 39-second mark of their fight at the sold-out 1stBank Center in Broomfield, Colorado.
Given ‘Super’ Sage’s arduous journey back to health, Chatri Sityodtong wasn’t only satisfied with the method in which the victory was achieved by his student. In point of fact, the lifelong martial artist is of the opinion that experiences such as that have the potential to serve as a source of motivation for the next generation of superstars.
The self-made entrepreneur gave his thoughts on why Northcutt’s victory was by far the most motivating of the lot when speaking at the ONE Fight Night 10 Post-Event Press Conference:
“Sage Northcutt, because of his incredible comeback,” I’d have to say. We genuinely want to create a platform that may serve as a source of motivation for people of all walks of life here in the birthplace of martial arts. to have bigger dreams, achieve bigger goals, and experience more of life.”
In addition, Chatri Sityodtong stated:
“I know that sounds cliché, but it’s genuinely, what I believe in my heart that these people are superheroes. I don’t care what anyone else thinks. Anyone can be motivated by the trips they’ve taken and the challenges they’ve met. With regard to this platform and our superheroes, there are a great number of things that I would like to accomplish. To directly respond to your inquiry, the correct answer is Sage. He unquestionably endured the most difficult road back.”
You can watch the entire interview by clicking here:
Fans in North America have the opportunity to re-watch the complete card of ONE Fight Night 10 by subscribing to Amazon Prime Video.