HOUSTON
He looks like Mr. Universe and fights like a superhero out of a comic book.
On Saturday night at UFC 192, expectations were high for “Super” Sage Northcutt and the 19-year old delivered, finishing Francisco Trevino in under a minute in his UFC debut.
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Northcutt came out and threw a pair of head kicks with bad intentions, and after Trevino slipped on a kick attempt of his own, Northcutt pounced. He landed a barrage on the fence that looked like a scene out of The Matrix.
“Once the fight started it was like slow motion pretty much,” Northcutt said.
After a right hand landed somewhere in the flurry, Northcutt dropped to a double leg takedown and then finished Trevino with another series of strikes before getting pulled off by referee Herb Dean.
“The first kicks – I wasn’t really trying to hit him. I was just throwing them out there to see what he was going to do,” Northcutt said. “I threw the fakes and then I saw an opening, and I came in and capitalized.”
UFC president Dana White discovered Northcutt, who has been training to be a fighter since he was 4 years old, on UFC FIGHT PASS exclusive series “Looking for a
Fighter.” He’s a decorated karate champion and has tried to mirror the game of former UFC champion Georges St-Pierre.
In front of his hometown of Houston, Northcutt looked the part of rising star. His athleticism was on display during the fight and afterward, when he landed a backflip and another flip that left most of the Internet asking what it just saw.
“It felt awesome just seeing the crowd and such a big arena,” Northcutt said. “You’d think you’d be pumped up so much because your adrenaline is going, but I was very calm.”
Some fans may have wondered if Northcutt was going to live up to the hype, especially after getting so much attention this week. But he said has been visualizing this moment for 10 years and he never doubted that he would shine when he finally performed under the UFC lights.
“Everybody, when they receive hype, they want to prove themselves pretty much,” he said. “But I know people may say, 'He doesn’t have as much, so Sage Northcutt shouldn’t be here in the UFC.’
“But I’ve been fighting my whole life and this is what I’ve been training for my whole life. Since I was 9 years old I’ve been planning for this.”
Matt Parrino is a digital producer and writer for UFC.com. Follow him on Twitter at @MattParrinoUFC