“I accept it in its entirety with Sage” – Chael Sonnen understands Sage Northcutt’s decision to withdraw at ONE 165

The ONE Championship career of Sage Northcutt has been filled with many ups and downs that have seen his progress get halted and jump-started again.

ONE 165 looked to finally be the point where he could put some of that behind him by securing a win over Shinya Aoki to approach the rest of 2024 off the back of consecutive wins.

Unfortunately, the setbacks continued to come his way as on fight day itself, ‘Super’ Sage announced that his corner was unable to make it to Japan, forcing him to make a crucial decision.

While many may be quick to push him into fighting regardless, Northcutt chose to pull out of the contest due to not having his coaches by his side in such a significant fight for him.

Chael Sonnen spoke about ‘Super’ Sage’s decision during a recent YouTube video where he revealed that he agrees with the decision.

Sonnen stated that he normally wouldn’t, but in this case, given the context, he sided with Northcutt’s decision:

"I give him a pass. I don't have a hard time with it. I will tell you, though, I don't see a lot of it with pros. Pros and adults, amateurs and children, generally go hand in hand. The proper and professional way to handle that is to follow the absolute golden rule: 'the show must go on'... It's an interesting one. Had anybody else done it, I think I'd snicker at them. I think I'd laugh... If it was anyone else. I accept it in its entirety with Sage."

Watch the full video below:

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Withdrawing from ONE 165 clearly wasn’t an easy decision for Sage Northcutt

One of the most important points to stress following this news is that Sage Northcutt will not have made this decision lightly.

On one hand, he has spent his entire training camp working closely with coaches who will no longer be able to corner him in the fight itself.

The counterargument is that he misses out on the chance to compete in Japan against a legend of the region, having already put in a full training camp.

It won’t have been a cut-and-dry situation for ‘Super’ Sage, but given all of the time he has had to think about his career and ambitions, Northcutt knows what is best for him at this stage.