Sage Northcutt has once again been dominating the headlines in the MMA world after he suffered his first professional loss in his third UFC fight against Bryan Barberena.
It seems incredibly harsh on Barberena that literally all of the focus after the fight, which ended via an arm triangle in the second round, has been about Northcutt and his failure to perform, but Dana White has not helped that one bit by jumping to the aid of Nortcutt, and cementing the idea that Sage is being favoured by the UFC in the process.
White was speaking on 'The Big Boy Show' when he claimed responsibility for Northcutt's loss, claiming that the 19 year old fighter was too sick to fight but insisted on being allowed to compete, to which White had the final say.
The kid was super sick and he still wanted to fight. His father said, 'listen we still want to take the fight, we still want to take the fight.'
I should have pulled the kid from the fight. He's 19 years old, he fought three times in [four] months. I should have pulled the kid from the fight. The kid really wanted to fight and I let him fight. He was sick as hell. I blew it.
This very well could be true, but White publicly revealing it does nothing to help Northcutt who, judging by the reaction to his loss, is becoming disliked by some MMA fans for the way that Dana appears to be trying to fast-track his success.
Sage Northcutt has since announced that he is now going to train full-time at the prestegious Tristar gym, home to Georges St-Pierre, Rory McDonald, and of course Donegal's Joseph Duffy among others, and that is exactly what he needs at this point in his career.
What he doesn't need is the UFC hype-train building him up to be some kind of superstar right from the start of his career, but this clear attempt at mitigation of damages from Dana suggests that the hype-train has merely taken a stop to re-fuel.
via MMAmania.com
