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ONE Championship has officially released a statement in response to American superstar Sage Northcutt’s account of why he pulled out of the Shinya Aoki fight in Japan at the very last minute.
The 27-year-old recently took to his social media accounts to explain his side of the situation.
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While it appears that there has been a terrible misunderstanding between Northcutt and ONE Championship, the promotion is keen on patching things up with the American star behind the scenes.
ONE provided an official statement to the media:
“ONE Championship empathizes with Sage Northcutt in regards to the situation he faced at ONE 165, where two of his coaches were not allowed to corner him, leading to his withdrawal from the event.”
“Due to a change in external guidance from a third-party visa consultancy on Certificate of Eligibility (COE) requirements for all cornermen at ONE 165, there were work visa processing issues leading up to the event, which unfortunately impacted multiple athletes.”
“The ONE team communicated the ongoing issues to our athletes and their management, but there was clearly a misunderstanding with the options presented to Sage and his team.”
“Despite his recent comments, ONE values Sage’s partnership on a personal and professional level, and we hope that we can resolve this situation amicably.”
“We also hope our athletes understand that we were acting in their best interest in being 100% compliant with local laws, and that this was an isolated incident given our track record of successfully flying in athletes and their cornermen for hundreds of global events.”
Sage Northcutt joined ONE Championship in May of 2019, suffering a bad knockout loss to Cosmo Alexandre in his debut fight. He returned in May of 2023, four years later to defeat Pakistani MMA star Ahmed Mujtaba by decision.
‘Super’ Sage was supposed to return at ONE 165 in Japan just last month to face former ONE lightweight MMA world champion Shinya Aoki, but withdrew from the fight in the locker room just minutes before his match because of visa issues with his cornermen.
