Category: Asian MMA

Sage Northcutt ready to reveal all over ONE fight withdrawal

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, MMA News, ONE 165: Superlek vs. Takeru, ONE Championship

UPDATE: Josh Barnett has a point to make:

Sage Northcutt’s MMA career has slowed to a crawl these past few years. After exiting the UFC back in 2018 ‘Super’ Sage had hoped to make a big splash on the international scene with his debut in Singapore-based ONE Championship.

Unfortunately for Northcutt, a middleweight bout against longtime kickboxer Cosmo Alexandre in May of 2019 left the longtime Team Alpha Male talent with eight facial fractures. A severe case of COVID followed and it was 2023 before the now-27-year-old was able to return to competition. Reports of more injury trouble followed Northcutt’s victory over Ahmed Mujtaba last year, leading to nearly another year of inactivity.

Sage Northcutt reveals reason behind ONE fight exit

Despite all the delays and all the health issues, Sage Northcutt seemed all ready to get his combat sports career underway again this past January, with a planned welterweight bout against longtime JMMA star Shinya Aoki at ONE 165 in Tokyo, Japan. At the last minute, however, news broke that Northcutt had pulled out of the fight, leaving Aoki to take on former ONE bantamweight champ John Lineker as a last minute replacement.

Soon after, reports surfaced that some problem with Northcutt’s corner had caused him to pull out of the fight. In a recent post to his Instagram account, the former youth Karate star gave a more thorough breakdown of events. Most notably, he claims ONE didn’t disclose to him that they had failed to secure proper visas for his team.

One Championship is implying that I pulled out of the Shinya fight for unforeseen circumstances. That is completely inaccurate. I sent One Championship the necessary paperwork they required to get my coaches visas 48 days ahead of the event. I was told by them over the phone and by text my main jujitsu coach Fabio Prado did not need a visa since I paid for his airfare flights and trip so he was not classified as a working employee that needed a visa and that my other coach could get in as a tourist so he didn’t need one either.

My coaches were there for almost a week, and I was not informed that two of them could not coach until hours before my match. I received a text from an unknown number that texted me for the first time that day that was a ticket salesman asking me about getting my two coaches complimentary tickets to watch my fight in the audience. I personally believe that One Championship was not going to inform me that my coaches were not allowed to corner me until I arrived at the arena to fight if I did not hear from a ticket salesman hours earlier.

We were also told hours before my match that if my coaches violated the visa requirements and were caught on camera, they could be arrested and there was a 99.8% conviction rate on all arrests. I made it clear to One Championship that I was not flying from America to Japan if I didn’t have my three coaches. I was told before I left to Japan by an executive that I would not have to fight without my coaches. They knew before I left that I would not be able to have two of my coaches. They never told me my coaches could be thrown in prison for any visa violation.

There has been a lot of stuff going on behind the scenes with One Championship with what caused me to withdraw from my last fight as well as other things that I will talk about at a later time on Facebook, Instagram, and with media outlets.

  • drug testing
  • weight cutting/ policies
  • active athletes/ roster
  • One’s stability… etc

If Northcutt really does plan to take further complaints with ONE and their business practices public in media interviews and social media posts, it could provide a fascinating test to the promotion’s draconian contract clauses. ONE infamously includes language in their deals that prevents fighters from disclosing company information, even to other members of their team. The also have anti-disparagement clauses that extend not just for the life of an athlete’s contract, but for the life of the athlete, full stop.

Urijah Faber suggests religious conviction lead to Northcutt’s withdrawal

One of the men there to corner Sage Northcutt in Japan was former UFC title contender and longtime Team Alpha Male owner Urijah Faber. Shortly after news that his fighter wouldn’t be competing broke, the ‘California Kid’ sat down with Middle Easy to explain his version of events. Faber backed up some of Sage’s story, noting that both Fabio Prado and Mark Northcutt (Sage’s father) were told they could not corner Northcutt just hours before the event.

He also added another interesting wrinkle to the conversation, however, with the suggestion that it wasn’t just the circumstances that caused Northcutt to withdraw from the bout, but also the fighter’s religious conviction.

“There’s a lot of misinterpretation there,” Faber explained (transcript via BJPenn.com). “I think if you watch Chatri [Sityodtong]’s interview he kind of said the way it was: there was a last-minute hiccup in the visas of Fabio Prado and Mr. Mark Northcutt, Sage’s dad.

“So, 10:30 at night in Japan, we learned that they were not going to be able to be in the corner,” Faber continued. “I got a message around 11:30 from Mark that Sage was not going to fight, and I talked to him face-to-face and kinda got the lowdown on what was going on. There was a lot of miscommunication and things like that. I was cleared to corner, I was cleared to be in the corner if Sage did want to fight.”

“I didn’t actually get to talk to Sage face-to-face until about one o’clock in the afternoon on fight day,” he continued. “And the general consensus was that he did not feel comfortable fighting with a couple of different things that had happened. He is a very big man of faith—he has a relationship with God and the holy spirit—and felt like things weren’t adding up for him and he didn’t feel like fighting.”

No word yet on when Northcutt might expect to return to action. But if he really does feel the need to spill the tea on ONE’s business, it may just be that fans will have to wait quite a while before they see him back in competition again.

Sage Northcutt talks ONE fight with Shinya Aoki

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, MMA News, ONE Championship

At one point Sage Northcutt looked as though he were the future of the UFC. Signed with a shiny 5-0 record at just 19 years old, the former poster boy of non-contact sport karate seemed headed for big things with his clean cut, wholesome personality and dynamic traditional martial arts style.

Unfortunately, the UFC is a terribly hard place to learn the ropes. A couple surprising upset losses and a few fights that were more difficult that expected and the Northcutt hype train felt all but derailed by the time he and the world’s largest MMA promotion parted ways in 2018.

Northcutt landed in ONE FC a year later, with the expectation of becoming a star for Asia’s largest MMA promotion instead, but a brutal loss to Cosmo Alexandre in his debut and bouts with injury and illness saw him sidelined for the next four years.

Sage Northcutt returns again

Finally, in May of last year, Northcutt made his return to competition—submitting relatively unknown AKA talent Ahmed Mujatab just 39 seconds into round 1 with a heel hook. Sadly, for fans hoping this would jump start his return to action, his injury troubles weren’t totally behind him.

“I would have liked to fight sooner than the six to eight months since my last fight, I wanted to fight very soon but I had a little nagging injury that I had going into my fight with Mujtaba and I got it checked up again after my fight,” Northcutt said in a recent interview.

No word on exactly what that injury might have been. Northcutt suffered multiple facial fractures in his bout against Cosmo Alexandre, but hasn’t publicly disclosed any other more recent injury problems. It may be worth noting, however that Northcutt did pull out of a 2017 bout against John Makdessi citing injury, but the exact nature of that issue was never disclosed.

Sage Northcutt talks prep for Aoki

Known primarily for his striking prowess, Sage Northcutt shocked a lot of fans when he won his last bout with a heel hook submission, the first joint-lock submission win of his career, and only submission since beating Cody Pfister in 2015. However, in a recent interview with MMA Junkie, Northcutt admitted that he’s been putting a whole lot of time into his grappling game. It’s something he says he won’t necessarily look to avoid, even against a submission artist with Aoki’s reputation.

“I’ve been working my grappling for the past several years a lot,” Northcutt revealed. “Great grapplers, great teammates, great coaches. So, I’ve been really, really preparing and training my grappling a whole lot to improve.”

“A lot of people know that Shinya is known for his grappling, but it’s not just a grappling match out there,” Northcutt said. “It is mixed martial arts. You have a whole different set of tools and same thing, it’s not just a striking match. So, I think really going out there and being ready for anything is very important.”

Of course, it doesn’t hurt Northcutt’s chances that Aoki is a full 13-years his senior, and has competed as low as 145 lbs in the past. While Northcutt pinged between lightweight and welterweight during his UFC run, he made his ONE debut up at 185 lbs. It seems very likely that the Team Alpha Male talent will hold a pretty decent strength advantage when he meets ‘Tobikan Judan’ on January 28th in Tokyo.

Mighty Mouse reflects on UFC trade years later

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, MMA News, ONE Championship, UFC News

The UFC was looking to kill flyweight in 2018 and cutting every fighter that lost. Nonetheless, it was still a massive shock when the UFC traded long-time division champ Demetrious “Mighty Mouse” Johnson for then-undefeated welterweight Ben Askren.

Demetrious Johnson calls UFC trade his ‘best decision’

Demetrious Johnson’s pro MMA career is winding down, so he took some time to reflect on that major moment in his career.

“When I was going into that final fight with Henry Cejudo, the time where the UFC was at with the flyweight division, I’d already defeated everybody,” Johnson told former UFC champion Rampage Jackson on his JAXXON podcast (transcript via MMA Fighting). “I just did my 11 consecutive title defenses and I was going to fight Henry Cejudo. So it’s another rematch. I had a rematch with John Dodson, a rematch with Joseph Benavidez, now it’s coming to the rematch with Henry Cejudo.

“So I’ve already gone through the whole division and now I’m about to fight Henry Cejudo the second time. … They would never let a flyweight at my time make $500,000. That was like the standard pay for a mixed martial artist, for the champion. If you became champion, it was like, you got that five bills plus pay-per-view points.”

“For me, they would never give that to me. And when I lost to Henry Cejudo [my then-management and I] were talking and we were like, ‘What are you going to do, bro?’ I was like, ‘You know, I want to see if they’re going to let me go.’ Because at the time they were talking about getting rid of that division, ‘I’m going to scrap it, it don’t make no money.’ So I was like, ‘Alright, let me see if I can get out of my contract.’ They were able to make it happen and they traded me for Ben Askren and I think it was the best decision that I ever did in my mixed martial arts career.”

Dana White had no regrets

On the Octagon side of things, Ben Askren had 3 UFC fights before retiring on a win and two losses.

Despite his ultimately lackluster record inside the Octagon, and lots of past animosity, UFC president Dana White had no regrets about trading what many consider to be an all time MMA legend for a man that never even managed to contend for a UFC title.

“No regrets, whatsoever,” White told reporters at an October 2019 press event shortly after Askren’s loss to Demian Maia (transcript via MMA Junkie). “That fight was incredible over the weekend. Loved that fight. Fun fight to watch. Ben brought a lot of hype to the UFC. People were excited about him coming in and fighting and seeing what he could do.

“The fight with Ben and Masvidal was what built Masvidal into what he is right now and going into this weekend. Without Askren, that doesn’t happen.”

Johnson last competed at ONE Fight Night 10 back in May of last year, where he defeated Adriano Moraes in a trilogy bout to retain his bantamweight championship belt. No word yet on when Johnson might return to action, in August of last year the 37-year-old suggested he was still undecided as to whether or not he would fight again.

Report: ONE Championship loses senior execs

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, MMA News, ONE Championship

We’ve already noted that 2024 could very well be a make or break year for one of the world’s largest combat sports promotions. One Championship is reportedly set to run out of investor cash by Q3 2024, and is apparently struggling to gain more funds from its biggest backers, the Qatari government.

Unfortunately for the Singapore-based company, there are also reports that the principal feeling about past investment in ONE among has been more embarrassment than anything else—as the combat sports organization has seemingly repeatedly failed to hit profitability targets year after year.

3 senior staff reported to have left ONE Championship

To add more uncertainty into the mix, a recent Deal Street Asia article highlighted a talent drain apparently ongoing in Qatar’s sports entertainment industry, noting that with the conclusion of the 2022 World Cup, top executives were making the jump over to Riyadh, where Saudi Arabia has shown greater interest for investment in major sports-washing events.

Since the World Cup ended, Qatar’s attention to hosting mega sports events has fallen off a cliff, shared one Doha-based sports industry executive. Many of his colleagues have already left and relocated to Riyadh. 

But it looks like it’s not just the Qatar side of the equation that’s losing its C-suite executives. A new article from DSA reveals that in just the past three months, ONE Championship has lost three members of its senior team and may not have any intentions of replacing them.

Back in October, it appears that Apprentice: ONE Championship Netflix show advisor—and head of company corporate strategy and technology—Niharika Singh severed her relationship with the fight promotion (having posted the end of her 4.5 year tenure with the company on her Linkedin profile). DSA notes conflicting reports as to the nature of Singh’s departure with one source reportedly telling the outlet that she had chosen not to renew her contract with ONE, and another source claiming that she had been let go from her position.

Alongside Singh, ONE VP in charge of analytics and insights Jane Guo is also reported as having exited the promotion after a 5.5-year run. No details about her departure were noted.

Chief commercial officer Hari Vijayarajan explains departure

Heading out the door with Singh and Guo, ONE Championship chief commercial officer Hari Vijayarajan has also left the company. In a letter posted on Linkedin, Vijayarajan explained his decision, calling it bittersweet. Vijayarajan is apparently leaving ONE to take on the role of CEO sustainability startup Reebelo. Despite reports of ONE’s potentially dire financial straits, however, he was very bullish on the promotion’s future.

After 5 amazing years at ONE as CCO, I have made a bittersweet decision to move on. This was truly the ride of a lifetime and I am extremely grateful for having had the opportunity to be part of the ONE rocketship. I want to thank Chatri Sityodtong & Hua Fung Teh (郑华峰) and all my colleagues for their tremendous support and guidance over the years. I am proud of the excellent commercial foundation that we have built, the awesome team I had the privilege to hire and groom, and the exciting years that lie ahead as ONE continues to expand rapidly and globally.

ONE has had a record 2023 in terms of viewership, engagement and revenues, and our revenue pipeline is the largest it’s ever been. So leaving was an extremely hard (and almost unnatural) decision, especially with ONE’s future looking so bullish. However, the rare opportunity to take on a major Regional CEO role based in Singapore, in an area I am passionate about (sustainability), was a once in a life-time opportunity. I have always aspired to be a CEO, with end-to-end cross-functional and P&L responsibility. I would not have left ONE otherwise.

Of course, at this point, we all know about ONE Championship’s non-disparagement clauses and the inability for fighters to speak with any negativity about the company’s business practices. Hard not to assume that senior staff are also being held to the same kind of legal wrangling.

We’ll likely know more in the coming weeks and months, as to just how prepared ONE is to survive the year. In the meantime, the promotion will put on its first fight card of 2024 on Friday, January 12th featuring a mix of MMA and kickboxing, headlined by a flyweight (135 lbs) title defense for former multiple time Muay Thai champion and ONE Flyweight Grand Prix winner Superlek Kiatmuu9, taking on Elias Mahmoudi at the Lumpinee Boxing Stadium in Bangkok, Thailand.

Update on ONE Championship’s potential funding bind

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, MMA Business and Finances, MMA News

Back in November we highlighted a report from Deal Street Asia on ONE Championship’s potential funding woes, most notably that sources close to the promotion were speculating that the promotion could run out of operating cash by Q3 of 2024.

As such, it seems ONE has been trying to secure another round of investment from the Qatari government. Unfortunately, it also sounds like the climate for getting that deal may be none too pleasant for a company that appears to have yet to find a way to turn a profit since its inception in 2011.

The promotion has gone through rounds of layoffs in the past to stay afloat and has finally made moves for long promised international expansion, with an event in Broomfield, CO this past May and plans for an event in Qatar in early 2024. But even with past cost cutting measures and big goals for the future, it looks like there are other factors at play that may make everything more difficult for ONE.

ONE Championship lacking deliverables

A new report from Deal Street Asia (DSA) has outlined the struggles that ONE Championship is likely facing if it hopes to secure more funding from the Middle East. First and foremost, a former ONE executive (who refused to be identified), told the outlet that the first round of Qatari investment in 2021 was supposed to bring a whole series of Apex-like shows to the country.

“The idea [then] was that ONE’s Qatar shows would be akin to UFC’s Apex in Las Vegas,” the reported former ONE exec told DSA. “These would be shows with smaller seating capacity, but would look better on television because they were easier to fill.”

Instead, it seems what the Qatari government received was some destination spotlighting from ONE CEO Chatri Sityodtong’s two seasons of The Apprentice: ONE Championship Edition, released for streaming in Asia on Netflix. Viewership numbers for the first season have the show ranked 9,763 out of approximately 18,000 titles on the platform. Reports have since suggested that some core sponsors brought in by the Qatari government to underwrite the show (Qatar Airways and Ooredoo Qatar) pulled back their funding of ONE projects.

In DSA’s latest news, ONE has denied that there were any “specific deliverables” wrapped up in Qatar’s investment in the fight promotion. Meanwhile Sityodtong has officially announced that the first ONE show in the country will take place on March 1st at the Lusail Sports Arena. Maybe that will be enough to strengthen the bond and secure a new deal between them.

Is Qatar fading out of sportswashing picture?

A bigger problem for ONE Championship than the potential embarrassment rumored to be felt by the Qatari government for what could be considered a questionable investment, are the optics that Qatar does not appear to be leading the drive for sporting events in the Middle East at the moment.

Abu Dhabi has a long standing business partnership with the UFC, Bahrain is wrapped up with BRAVE CF, and Saudi Arabia has become the region’s biggest hot spot for sports investment, bankrolling not just the WWE and PFL, but a whole slew of upcoming international events, including the 2034 World Cup.

DSA spoke to at least one sports exec in Qatar who noted that many of his colleagues in the region have relocated to Riyadh for the money that the Saudi government is currently throwing at major showcase sporting events.

(230110) -- BEIJING, Jan. 10, 2023 -- Winner Team Argentina celebrate during the awarding ceremony of the 2022 FIFA World Cup, WM, Weltmeisterschaft, Fussball at Lusail Stadium in Lusail, Qatar, Dec. 18, 2022. ) (SP)XINHUA-PICTURES OF THE YEAR 2022 LixMing PUBLICATIONxNOTxINxCHN
Where’s the next major event on the Qatar sports horizon? | Xinhua, IMAGO

For all that hand-wringing, Qatar is still hosting the 2027 FIBA Basketball World Cup and the 2030 Asian Games, and just wrapped up hosting the FIFA World Cup in 2022 and the AFC Asian Cup in 2023. So it can’t be said that there’s no interest in the region in continuing to be seen as a force in the sporting world. But, if Qatar isn’t interested in funding ONE going forward it seems like other spenders in the region have already locked down their combat sports partners.

If that ends up meaning that ONE has most of their eggs in a single basket, then it’s not hard to see how 2024 could end up being a very difficult year.

UFC legend accepts bodybuilder Bradley Martyn’s viral David vs. Goliath challenge

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, BJJ News, Grappling, MMA News

Martial arts have long laid claim to the ability to teach the weak to fight against the strong. Stories of Kung Fu being used to train farmers to fight back against soldiers have persisted for centuries. The Gracies famously pushed for Royce to be the family representative at UFC 1, in order to show the dominance of Gracie Jiu Jitsu, where even a ~175 lb. noodle in pajamas could beat massive muscled athletes.

However, if martial arts have taught us that training and technique can beat size and strength, combat sports have taught us that, to coin a phrase, there are weight classes for a reason. Put two people of similar skill together in a cage or ring and more often than not, the big one’s gonna win. It’s that kind of math that seems to have given some people the wrong idea.

Bodybuilder Bradley Martyn can’t believe he’d lose to Demetrious Johnson

Speaking to Brendan Schaub on a recent ‘Raw Talk’ podcast, Martyn claimed he would “crush” former UFC flyweight (and current ONE bantamweight) champion Demetrious Johnson if the two were to ever square off.

“150 pounds is like a towel to me,” Martyn enthused, adding that he would “crush his head on the floor.”

Clips from the conversation went viral, people started talking back and forth, and now it appears that the fight is actually going to happen. Well, not so much a fight, but a grappling match at least. Johnson —who’s been planning a move to grappling anyhow—announced his intention to make the bout happen in a recent podcast.

“It’s funny, you know. He’s 265, he’s a bodybuilder, so obviously he’s got the weight advantage. But, at the end of the day, that’s the beautiful thing about grappling; it’s not about weight, it’s about technique. And we’re going to try to grapple. I told Brendan Schaub that I want to make it happen. I’m busy doing other things right now, but when I get back from all my vacation I’m going to fly down to Calabasas and we’re going to roll, man. I’m going to roll him up.”

Joe Rogan pitched in his feelings on the fight

Brendan Schaub already made his position known to Martyn, that he would get absolutely annihilated by the record holder for most title defenses in UFC history. But what does the everyman think? We don’t know, but Joe Rogan has some ideas. Notably, Rogan feels that if Martyn and Johnson were to compete in a ‘street fight’ Martyn just might win it.

“Bradley is enormous and Bradley is so f—king strong,” Rogan explained (transcript via SportsManor). He’s an athlete. He’s a f—king specimen. Now if this was in a street fight, the thing about Bradley is he can hit you with the Earth you know what I’m saying… If that guy picks you up and smashes you into the ground, your body will shatter.”

“And Mighty Mouse is, you know, he probably walks around at a buck 50 or a buck 45 and he cuts down to 125,” Rogan continued. “If they just do a jiu-jitsu match, Mighty Mouse is going to get him.”

Who knows if or when we’ll actually find out the answers as to whether a world class bodybuilder is strong enough to out-grapple the best flyweight MMA fighter to ever live, with just strength and power alone? The two men have yet to make anything official. But, hopefully we’ll see some kind of exhibition down the line, just for the sheer circus sideshow strangeness of it all.

https://soundcloud.com/bloody-elbow-podcast/ufc-antitrust-lawsuit-developments-explained?in=bloody-elbow-podcast/sets/all-episodes&si=9128956aca22406c9376576b88d833ab&utm_source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

Sage Northcutt was planning comeback ‘the very next day,’ never considered retirement after crushing ONE debut

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, Front Page, MMA News

Sage Northcutt is all set for his MMA return on May 5th in Broomfield, CO. The former top UFC prospect left the world’s largest MMA promotion back in 2018 to play the free agent market, eventually landing with Singapore’s ONE Championship. What was supposed to be a glorious debut, against former kickboxing sensation Cosmo Alexandre turned instead into a career altering moment for the Team Alpha Male fighter.

A quick KO in round 1 saw Northcutt suffer 8 facial fractures. He hasn’t competed since.

Despite the severity of the setback, in a recent interview with the MMA Hour, Northcutt revealed that the idea of stepping away from competition permanently never crossed his mind.

“No, not really,” Northcutt admitted, when asked if he’d considered retiring (transcript via MMA Fighting). “After my fight, even right afterward, the very next day I was already planning on coming back. It did take a little while — as a lot of people know, for about a year plus, I was just healing up. So that took a little bit of time, for sure. But after that, I was full-blown training.”

In fact, The now 26-year-old had his MMA return all prepared for April 2021—a bout against Shinya Aoki—when he was hit by another major medical setback.

“Horrible coincidence, but two weeks out from my fight, I was supposed to leave to go overseas, I got COVID,” he said. “That just threw everything for a loop. I was pretty sick for a little bit. It took like six months of doing blood work, trying to figure out what’s going on.

“I didn’t even know for the first couple of days. I kept trying to train through and started to get run down, ended up testing positive for COVID. … So I was trying to work around that, and I think trying to do that, I just ran myself down pretty bad. Then I had to sit at home, and that was the hardest thing, not doing anything.”

All told, while it hasn’t been the most productive time of ‘Super’ Sage’s life, it sounds like he’s found a quality silver lining out of it. Namely that this major series of setbacks came early in his career.

“I”m glad this happened at a time when I was so young and didn’t happen later in my career,” Northcutt enthused. “I have a full career ahead of me. It happened now, and it’s better than later.”

ONE Fight Night 10 takes place at the 1stBank Center in Broomfield, CO. The card is expected to be headlined by a 135 lb title trilogy bout between Demetrious Johnson and Adriano Moraes.

Sage Northcutt set for MMA return after four years away

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, Front Page, MMA News

At one point in time, Sage Northcutt was the hottest prospect in mixed martial arts. Signed to the UFC at just 19-years-old, the former Karate child star looked the part of a future PPV cash cow for the world’s largest MMA promotion.

Whether he was pushed too far too fast, or had a few too many holes in his striking-centric style to thrive, or just wanted more than the UFC was willing to give, however, Northcutt and the promotion split on seemingly amicable terms back in 2018, with ‘Super’ Sage carrying a 6-2 record inside the Octagon over his three year tenure.

Not long after, Northcutt made the move to Singapore’s ONE Championship where he was set to take on former kickboxing sensation and fellow ONE debutee Cosmo Alexandre in a 185lb (ONE welterweight) bout. Things did not go well.

Northcutt ended up flat on the canvas just 29 seconds into round one, his face fractured in eight places due to a single right hand from his opponent. That’s the last time the Sacramento native was seen inside the ring.

Jump ahead four years—including a reportedly wicked case of COVID-19—and it appears Northcutt is once again set to return to competition. MMA Fighting reports that ONE has confirmed the return of the former UFC talent, for a bout on May 5th at ONE on Prime Video 10.

Now 26-years-old, Northcutt is set to take on Ahmed Mujtaba. Sporting a record of 10-2, the Pakistani fighter training out of AKA first came to ONE back in 2016, and has put together a 3-2 record in his 6+ years with the promotion. Most recently he fought at ONE Championship 163, in November of last year, defeating Abraao Amorim via first round submission.

Although Northcutt had previously stated that he would be returning back down to 155 lbs following his loss to Alexandre, his bout against Mujtaba has been booked at 170 lbs. Alongside Northcutt’s return, the card is also expected to feature a 135 lb title fight trilogy bout between former UFC champion Demetrious Johnson and Adriano Moraes.

About the author: Zane Simon is a senior editor, writer and podcaster for Bloody Elbow. Host of the MMA Vivisection and 6th Round, he has covered MMA and the UFC since 2013. (full bio)

Victoria Lee, sister to ONE champ Angela Lee, dead at 18-years-old

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, Front Page, MMA News

It’s been a rough start to 2023 from the MMA world, and it doesn’t appear that the bad news is about to let up. The latest shock arrived on Saturday, January 7th, with the terrible news that 18-year-old ONE Championship fighter Victoria Lee had passed away.

The announcement came via Instagram from Lee’s sister, fellow fighter and ONE atomweight champion Angela Lee. A cause of death was not given.

2022 our family experienced something no family should ever have to go through… It is incredibly difficult to say this… Our Victoria passed away.

She has gone too soon and our family has been completely devastated since then. We miss her. More than anything in this world. Our family will never be the same. Life will never be the same.

Victoria was the most beautiful soul who ever lived. She was the best little sister in the world. The best daughter, the best granddaughter and the best godma / aunty to Ava and Alia.

We miss you so much sis. More than you could ever realize. We’re all broken. Because a piece of you was in each of us and when you left, those pieces were ripped out of us. We will never be the same.

Each and every little thing makes me think of you. From the sun rays, to the sunset. You taught us to see the beauty in the simple things. You were our bright light. Our sunshine. And that will never change. You were perfect in every way. The best person I knew. The most beautiful girl, inside and out. We love you Victoria. I love you Sprout. Until the end of time.

Please give our family grace and respect during this most difficult time. And please, check on your loved ones. Keep checking on them. Give them hugs and tell them how much they mean to you. You just never know.

Following in the footsteps of her brother, ONE welterweight champion Christian Lee, and her sister Angela, Victoria signed a contract with the Singapore-based promotion at just 16-years-old. At the time of her passing she was the youngest athlete on the company’s roster.

She rattled off three-straight stoppage wins in 2021 to make her professional debut, but had not competed in mixed martial arts since a TKO win over 5-0 Victoria Souza fifteen months ago. Back in November, MMA Fighting reported that an undisclosed injury had put Victoria Lee’s combat sports career on hold, but that she had planned to return to competition in early 2023, against Zeba Bano at ONE on Prime Video 6 in Bangkok, Thailand.

‘This is where it started, Khabib’ – Scott Coker says ex-UFC champ was ‘freaking out’ over Bellator vs. Rizin event

Posted on by Zane Simon in Asian MMA, Bellator, Front Page, MMA News

It’s hard to deny that, when the UFC closed the doors on PRIDE back in 2007, something special was lost in the MMA world. Japan’s highest profile mixed martial arts promotion brought a level of spectacle and pageantry to the sport that other organizations around the world have spent years chasing, but few have rarely been able to match.

With the expiration of his non-compete clause in 2014, however, former PRIDE CEO Nobuyuki Sakakibara jumped straight back into the combat sports world with RIZIN Fighting Federation. Since 2015 this new venture has looked to recapture as much of the past glory of the J-MMA scene as it possibly can.

The results haven’t been nearly so consistent, however Sakakibara & Co. finished the year on a high note with a massive NYE cross-promotion event in partnership with Paramount’s Bellator MMA. Bellator president Scott Coker was on hand for the fight card, as apparently was former UFC champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. After the event Coker spoke to attending media, noting that ‘The Eagle’ was mightily impressed by the production values surrounding the evening’s bouts.

“It’s very interesting, because he wasn’t here in the heyday,” Coker said of Nurmagomedov (transcript via MMA Fighting). “I got to see those fights. A lot of you know that [I’ve been] in the martial arts business a long time, I started working for K-1 in 1999, so I got to see all the great fights in K-1. I got to see the great fights of PRIDE. And Khabib has never see the production and the fans, and he was freaking out.

“He was telling me, ‘This is unbelievable.’ He kept telling me, ‘This is unbelievable. I had no idea that something like this was happening in Japan.’ And I said, ‘This is where it started, Khabib.’ This is where MMA and martial arts combat, it started here. It grew throughout the rest of the world, but there was a time when Japan had the best fighters in the world, the best production in the world, the best promotion in the world, and that’s why the UFC bought it. Just like my company, Strikeforce, I think we had a great roster, great events, so they bought it.”

Unlike their purchase of PRIDE, after which the doors were more or less immediately closed on the organization, Zuffa continued operating Strikeforce for two whole years after taking over the Showtime-based promotion. Coker remained with Strikeforce throughout its time as a sister operation with the UFC. Shortly after his contract with Zuffa ended in 2014, he was hired by Bellator to replace former president and promotion founder Bjorn Rebney.

No 2023 events have been announced for RIZIN as of yet. The promotion typically doesn’t hold its first event of the new year until February or March.