Sage Northcutt shares what beating Shinya Aoki would mean to his career: “He’s one of the longest-reigning world champions”

Multiple-time karate world champion and current ONE Championship lightweight MMA contender ‘Super’ Sage Northcutt eyes an explosive return to action, and he already knows who he wants next – former ONE lightweight MMA world champion ‘Tobikan Judan’ Shinya Aoki.

Northcutt and Aoki have been linked for a fight for quite some time now. But due to various factors, the fight never materialized. Now, it seems, the world’s largest martial arts organization is revisiting this potential matchup and Northcutt couldn’t be more excited.

Speaking to ONE Championship in a recent interview, Northcutt says he has had Shinya Aoki on his mind recently and would be open to taking on the Japanese MMA legend soon.

‘Super Sage’ said:

“I’ve been really focused on Shinya since after my last fight. Post-fight when we talked with all the media, it got brought up by someone out there saying, ‘How about you and Shinya?’ And it got brought up that it might possibly be the next thing. So since then, I’ve just been thinking about that.”

Following a lengthy hiatus after his disastrous ONE Championship debut in 2019, Northcutt returned at ONE Fight Night 10: Johnson vs. Moraes III on Prime Video last May. ‘Super’ defeated Pakistani standout Ahmed ‘The Wolverine’ Mujtaba via first-round submission.

Now riding a wave of confidence, Northcutt says he’s ready to face the former king of the ONE Championship lightweight MMA division.

‘Super Sage’ added:

“I had quite a few years off, and I came back in my last fight, won by submission in the first round, and now I’m going to be possibly fighting Shinya. He’s one of the top guys in the division. He was one of the longest-reigning World Champions for ONE Championship. That’s a big one.”

Stay tuned to Sportskeeda MMA for all the news and updates on Sage Northcutt’s next fight.