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Here’s the video of Sage Northcutt’s sparring session with Muay Thai world champion Ilya Grad. If you look in the last 30 seconds of the video, you’ll hear Northcutt’s father Mark say that it’s time to end the 12-minute sparring session.
Seems innocent enough, right?
Well it was all good, until training partner Dan ‘Hangman’ Hooker shared Ilya Grad’s post, sparking controversy:
I don’t get it, you want be a fighter but you can’t get hit? also your dad who never fought wants to be the coach. MMA is for tough people not for a sissy, if you are sissy you should try ballet. Lucky for you I was not at my school today because if I was there I will punch you and your fricking dad on the face. Again if u can’t get hit you should keep just hit the pads like u always do and get your ass kick like the last fight. So I hope u and your dad see my post and came back so I can teach you both a lesson. Sissy big time. #ufcisformennotforsissys
Sage Northcutt’s dad responded instantly, telling LowkickMMA.com that the reaction from the training partners at Gracie Barra in Houston, Texas was exaggerated:
“Everything that Ilya made in this post is completely untrue. First off, we get there and Ilya says, “Oh my neck’s hurt, I really can’t spar, why don’t we just do some light drills?” When Sage’s coach said that was okay, we’ll go back on our side of town and train, he just said “Well, okay, I’ll go ahead and spar.”
“From the first few seconds of sparring, Ilya is complaining about Sage the entire time saying “don’t hit so hard, tone it down” and Sage is maybe going 30% and not even throwing any kicks to speak of. For Ilya to say that he was there to teach Sage is a complete lie – that guy couldn’t teach Sage anything and he moved around like a robot with his feet in quicksand. We came over there because Sage’s Gracie coach said that he was a world champ in Muay Thai and would be glad to spar 100% – and him wanting to spar 100% was the farthest thing from the truth.”
“Ilya said Sage’s dad was talking crap from the start…
More on page 3…
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