“Super Sage” Northcutt has been called the “future of the UFC”. He is the UFC’s new “golden boy” and a dream come true for Dana White. The UFC President likely sees unlimited marketing and money-making potential with the latest star in the world of mixed martial arts (MMA).
Sage Northcutt – model and actor
UFC Lightweight Northcutt seems to have it all. He has the skills. He has the smarts. He has the looks. And he has the physique. And now he has the prized UFC contact. Super Sage could open up an entire new market in mainstream America for the UFC.
“I like to smile and I’m happy and bubbly, so I’m not your typical MMA fighter – being all tattooed up and serious,” Sage told Matt Parino with the UFC. “I think that’s something different.”
Sage Northcutt – ripped with six-pack at age 4
Sage has literally been training for this moment since he was four years old. Even at that young age, Super Sage was ripped and had a six pack. His father, Mark Monroe Northcutt, put him on a strict bodybuilding diet of chicken, fish, rice and egg whites. He also made him do 250 pushup and situps every day by the time he was seven. When Sage turned 7, the number rose to 1,000 daily pushups and situps.
“People used to say that it wasn’t good for a little kid to be that ripped, or to have abs,” Sage’s father once said. “But we made it fun for him to do pushups and situps.”
As a child, he was an international champion in various disciplines. He was undefeated in youth kickboxing competition. He has mastered various techniques related to striking, kicking, throwing, takedowns and joint locks from an early age. He is a third-degree black belt in Taekwondo and Kajukenbo and he is a purple belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
Sage Northcutt – 2013 NPC Texas State Teenage Physique Champion
And as if that wasn’t enough, the teenager even found time to place 5th in the Texas UIL State Wrestling Tournament in high school. He has also competed in a National Physique Committee (NPC) contest along the way picking up the title of the 2013 NPC Texas State Teenage Physique Champion.
With his Abercrombie & Fitch good looks, he’s also been a child model and actor represented by Page Parkes Center of Modeling and Acting in Houston. He’s appeared numerous times in print advertisements for Academy Sports and television commercials for Sprint and Timer Warner’s Roadrunner high-speed internet service. He’s even had a small role in two episodes of Disney’s “Moises Rules”.
This brings us to his career as a professional MMA fighter. He went pro at the ripe young age of 18. After an impressive victory over Rocky Long at Legacy Fighting Championship 44 on August 28, 2015, Northcutt became the standout star for the first episode of Dana White’s “Looking for a Fight”. White quickly signed him to a UFC contact.
“I think they’ve never really seen the real Sage out there yet,” Mark Northcutt said. “They don’t really know that he’s got great stand-up. So far he’s been this counter-fighter that he’s not; they haven’t seen the guy going forward.”
In his UFC debut, Super Sage defeated Francisco Trevino at UFC 192 on October 3, 2015. With the UFC 192 victory, Northcutt has gone undefeated in his professional MMA career with a perfect 6-0 record.
And on top of it all, Super Sage is enrolled as a freshman in the petroleum engineering program at Texas A&M University. It is the number-one ranked petroleum engineering program in the United States.
Sage Northcutt has it all. And the driving force behind all of his success is his father, Mark Northcutt. However, his father could ironically also be the only blemish on the resume of the new UFC golden boy.
Bodybuilder Mark Northcutt was known as a steroid dealer in the late 1980s
Mark Northcutt was known as a steroid dealer in bodybuilding gyms around the state of Texas during the late 1980s. A bodybuilder himself who used his own product, Mark Northcutt had a massive, hypermuscular physique that served as a walking billboard for his wares. He was also a big-time cocaine dealer who got busted with a whopping stash of 25 kilograms of cocaine for which he had just paid $337,500 in Houston in on September 26, 1989.
Mark Northcutt was indicted by a federal grand jury in Texas on cocaine distribution and conspiracy charges. In order to save his own ass, the elder Northcutt made a deal with prosecutors and became a government informant. Mark Northcutt helped the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) identify, set up and arrest several other government targets in the investigation. Not surprisingly, his snitching led a few of his bodybuilding peers to label him as a scammer and con artist.
Twenty-five years later, Mark Northcutt’s drug-dealing days are long behind him, all of the people he helped put in prison have been released and he has dedicated his life to the success of his children.
“I believe I can be the champ and we’re going to see,” Sage told TheProvince.com after his victory over Trevino at UFC 192. “I’d like to be Top 10, but I have to build myself up. I’m only 19-years-old, I’m the youngest person in the UFC currently, so I’m looking forward to the next fight.”
Sage is set to fight Cody Pfister at UFC Fight Night 80 on December 10, 2015,
Sage Northcutt could very well be his father’s best chance at redemption for the mistakes of a past life.
Sage’s father didn’t load him up on steroids – he loaded him up with a solid, powerful foundation that Sage has been building on ever since. If we judge the son by the sins of the father then we dilute the success of the son. And I’ll wager if you say that to Sage’s face you won’t be walking away upright.
Congrats on all his success!
Lol. Say what to Sages face? His daddys a drug dealer? Nothing to deny. His dads a juicehead and he probably has had Sage on it aswell.
Sage seems to be a very positive young man. Maybe he has deep issues that will surface later in life but meanwhile, while I do not admire his chosen profession, of smashing other people’s faces in and exposing himself to the same, his positive attitude and polite behavior is certainly role model like.