Sage Northcutt is heading into his upcoming ONE Championship bout with even more fire after recently coming face-to-face with his adversary. On Sunday, January 28, the American MMA star is set to take on Japanese martial arts legend Shinya Aoki in a lightweight MMA matchup.

It will go down at ONE 165: Superlek vs. Takeru inside the Ariake Arena in Tokyo, Japan. The pair have called each other out on social media before, which almost culminated in a match. It didn’t materialize on that occasion, but it looks to be going ahead now, and Northcutt couldn’t be more excited.

Sage Northcutt is glad he’ll get this fight finally

“We did have the fight scheduled before, and a couple of weeks before flying out, I got sick with COVID, and that was unfortunate. Getting to have this fight is a big opportunity,” he told ONE in an interview. Before his triumphant 34-second submission win over Ahmed Mujtaba at ONE Fight Night 10 last May, “Super” had been sidelined for an extended period.

Why? It was following a devastating injury at the hands of Cosmo Alexandre in his ONE debut at ONE: Enter The Dragon in May 2019. Not something that can just be shrugged off. While away, though, he stayed active in preparation for his comeback, and he had Aoki in mind as an opponent.

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The 40-year-old veteran has been a force in ONE Championship’s lightweight MMA division for many years, and he has held the World Title on two occasions, so Northcutt knew that beating a fighter of Aoki’s caliber would help him make a statement.

Now, he is looking to settle that unfinished business. He respects the revered Japanese athlete and looks forward to their matchup, but the multiple-time Karate World Champion also shared that he has found new motivation to beat him after they faced off in a press conference for ONE 165. 

Northcutt in his own words

“I went to shake his hand during the press conference, and he was pretty stone-cold serious, but it seems like that’s just his personality from his previous fights and stuff,” Sage Northcutt said. “Man, it just pumps me up more to where I want to go train even harder. I’m going to try to hit him super hard out there. It doesn’t frustrate me at all. It was just interesting.” 

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Clearly, Aoki brings out the fighter within Northcutt. Both the fighters have proven their mettle over the last few years of their career and perhaps, this will be one of the most interesting fights of their entire careers. Who do you think will win at ONE 165? Let us know in the comments.

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