Sage Northcutt was the first fighter Dana White signed while on the road for his ‘Looking For A Fight’ series, but yesterday the UFC President revealed that he’s now let the young star move on to pastures new.
“We let Sage go,” White said on the UFC Unfiltered podcast yesterday. “Sage is young and Sage needs some work. Let him get some work in one of these other organizations and we’ll see where this kid ends up in a couple years. Maybe we’ll pick him back up.
“His contract was up so we let him go.”
That’s an interesting spin on the situation as the 22-year-old Northcutt is currently on a three-fight winning streak and racked up his first win at welterweight last time out with a knockout win over Zak Ottow in July.
In total that means Northcutt has now won 6 of his 8 fights in the UFC, but admittedly the standard of opposition has always been on the lower end of the scale, as he didn’t go up against any established names during his time in the Octagon.
Nonetheless, Northcutt did seem like a young, developing prospect who the UFC had already invested time and money into promoting, so it’s somewhat surprising that they have now let him go.
However, ‘Super’ Sage already commanded a higher-than-average $40,000 to show, $40,000 to win basic salary for a young newcomer to the UFC, and with his contract it’s not hard to imagine that he’ll have been looking for a significant pay rise, and that may be where the real problem lies in terms of the promotion’s decision to let him go on his way.
Given his name value, Northcutt is likely to have no trouble finding a new home with the likes of Bellator sure to be interested, while his clean-cut persona will no doubt appeal to ONE FC, who have recently also signed the likes of Demetrious Johnson, Eddie Alvarez and brought in Miesha Tate as vice-president.
