Sage Northcutt explains his tough battle with COVID-19

At ONE Fight Night 10, Sage Northcutt will return to the circle for the first time in four years.

Since signing with ONE Championship in 2019, things haven’t gone to plan for Sage in his career, but on May 5, he is ready to put the past behind him when he faces Ahmed Mujtaba.

After losing in 30 seconds on his debut, ‘Super’ Sage was forced to undergo surgery and a lengthy recovery process that kept him out of the spotlight for two years.

As he attempted to make his comeback, his time away from the spotlight was doubled by a bout with COVID-19 that forced him to pull out of his scheduled return and proved to be a far longer recovery process than he first thought.

In an interview with ESPN MMA, Sage went into detail about exactly what happened and how he felt throughout the process:

“Everybody’s symptoms with COVID are different obviously. For me, I tried training through it. I tried keeping my own cardio so like even [when] I found out I got COVID, I wasn’t going to Urijah Faber’s gym or training mixed martial arts. For that time, I was still trying to push myself. So I was trying to go jogging on my own or walking on the treadmill or doing some kind of cardio until I made myself worse. Obviously, I was told by doctors I had to sit back and can’t do anything, don’t get your heart rate up, and just kind of let myself heal up from there.”

He added:

“Super weird. It’s interesting, a lot of athletes are so tuned in with their body that they know when they feel run down. Even when you’re not sick, you feel run down, you need some extra sleep, whatever it might be. It’s definitely strange.”

Watch the full interview below:

Sage Northcutt will face Ahmed Mujtaba when he finally returns at ONE Fight Night 10 on May 5. The entire event will air live and free via Prime Video for North American viewers.