ONE
Championship has responded to Sage
Northcutt’s claims that the Singapore-based promotion was
responsible for the cancelation of his
ONE 165 lightweight clash against Shinya Aoki
on Jan. 28 in Tokyo, Japan.
While Northcutt was set to face “Tobikan Judan” in a
highly-anticipated bout on the pay-per-view, the organization
announced that the American had withdrawn from the card due to
unforeseen circumstances.
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However, Northcutt shared a different version of events that
led to his withdrawal in an Instagram post.
ONE Championship has now responded to Northcutt’s statement,
describing the situation as a misunderstanding caused by “work visa
processing issues.”
Furthermore, the promotion made it clear that it would like to
alleviate all of Northcutt’s concerns and move to resolve the
situation amicably.
“ONE Championship empathizes with Sage Northcutt in regards to
the situation he faced at ONE 165, where two of his coaches were
not allowed to corner him, leading to his withdrawal from the
event.
Due to a change in external guidance from a third-party visa
consultancy on Certificate of Eligibility (COE) requirements for
all cornermen at ONE 165, there were work visa processing issues
leading up to the event, which unfortunately impacted multiple
athletes.
The ONE team communicated the ongoing issues to our athletes and
their management, but there was clearly a misunderstanding with the
options presented to Sage and his team.
Despite his recent comments, ONE values Sage’s partnership on a
personal and professional level, and we hope that we can resolve
this situation amicably.
We also hope our athletes understand that we were acting in their
best interest in being 100% compliant with local laws, and that
this was an isolated incident given our track record of
successfully flying in athletes and their cornermen for hundreds of
global events.”