SACRAMENTO -- Even as the hours wind down to their UFC on FOX 22 welterweight main-card bout, Mickey Gall can’t help but make fun of Sage Northcutt.

Gall thinks Northcutt’s constant smiling and positive attitude are a front. And he doesn’t think Northcutt wouldn’t have fit in very well Gall’s hometown of New Brunswick, New Jersey.

“Not very long,” Gall said when asked at Thursday’s open workouts on how long Northcutt would last where Gall grew up. “He’d find himself in a locker. He’d probably kick his way out of a locker, I’ll give him that. ... He seems very ingenuine. I say corny like a dork, but its an ingenuinty, he’s putting on.”

Northcutt, for his part, doesn’t exactly talk trash. But the Houston native, who is X-1 in the UFC, pointed out that Gall’s first two UFC opponents, Mike Jackson and CM Punk, weren’t exactly world-class caliber.

“I think sometimes you should be careful what you wish for,” Northcutt said. “I’m not going to cut anybody down, bit he fought two guys who never had an MMA fight before, so me, myself, I’m going to go up a weight class and fight 170, I’m prepared and I’m ready.”

Gall shakes off Northcutt’s concerns, predicting he’ll win the fight via finish in the second round.

“I’m better on the feet, better on the ground, tougher than him, endurance, everything,” Gall said. “When we jump in the fire, he’s hopping out of the fire way before I am. ... It could go quick. I’’m ready for three hard ones. I’m going to get the finish. I’d like to get a knockout in the first, but smart money is I’ll choke him out in the second.”