On Jan. 16, 2021, in the first UFC show of the year, Calvin Kattar ate the beating of a lifetime. In the biggest fight of his career, an enormous breakout opportunity against former featherweight champion Max Holloway, Kattar had the door slammed in his face.
It wasn’t just that Kattar was completely dominated – Holloway earned two 50-43s and an exceedingly rare 50-42 from the judges. It wasn’t just that Holloway landed 445 strikes, a UFC record. It was the fact that Kattar was so completely exposed as not being on the same level as Holloway, one of the best 145-pound fighters of all time. The skill gap was astounding. It didn’t matter that Kattar was one of the top-ranked featherweights in the world – there was simply nothing he could do.
How does one come back from that kind of domination, that kind of humiliation? A fight where you’re getting your ass kicked so bad that parts of it go viral? Kattar took the rest of the year off after losing to Holloway, and it was easy to speculate about what kind of physical and mental toll that type of beatdown could have on Kattar moving forward in his career.
Fast forward one year. 364 days after losing to Holloway, Calvin Kattar was back in the same place – in the main event of the first UFC show of the year, as an underdog against a highly acclaimed striker. And oh yes, there was a beatdown on Saturday night. But this time, it was Calvin Kattar doing the beating.
Kickboxing star Giga Chikadze had cut a swath through the UFC since signing with the promotion in 2019 – the Georgian had started 7-0 in the Octagon, and blasted into featherweight title contention after TKO finishes of Cub Swanson and Edson Barboza in 2021. Kattar wasn’t going to beat Chikadze in a technical striking match. But he could beat Chikadze in a bloody war. That’s exactly what he did.
Yes, against Max Holloway Calvin Kattar got punched 445 times. The fact that he took so many blows is an indication of weaknesses in his game. But you can look at it the other way – Calvin Kattar was able to take 445 punches without going down. That’s an indication of Kattar being one of the toughest, most durable motherfuckers in the game. Chikadze found that out the hard way.
Kattar might have written the blueprint for overcoming Chikadze as a striker – first, you have to be tough. Second, you have to push forward. Kattar was able to take away Chikadze’s vaunted kicking game by getting in his face, crowding him constantly and giving him no quarter. Chikadze has a good pair of hands, but he isn’t a big hitter with the fists. This was the kind of fight that Kattar could win, and win decisively.
That’s exactly what he did. Although very little of the pre-fight coverage talked about Kattar, focusing instead on Chikadze’s incandescent rise, but Kattar ultimately ran away with the fight – 50-45, 50-45, 50-44. Even from the beginning, it was clear that Kattar was outgunned from the perspective of pure striking talent – Chikadze is lightning-fast on the feet, and is technically as good as it gets in the UFC. Kattar won this fight by being tough and durable as much as anything else, wearing Chikadze down and breaking him in the course of executing his winning strategy.
But also, those fucking standing elbows. A symphony of them. The standing elbow, in my opinion, is one of the most underrated and underused strikes in the sport of MMA, and we’ve seen Kattar use them quite effectively in the past, most notably when he knocked out Jeremy Stephens in May 2020. Kattar came in on Saturday swinging those things like his life depended on it, and it ruled.
Hence why Chikadze’s face looked like it had been shoved into a woodchipper at the end of the 25 minutes. Take a look at this shit from the final seconds of the fight.
Calvin Kattar has been a man deprived. His only fight in the last year was a one-sided loss. He’s had to deal with his reputation taking a huge hit. He’s had to deal with becoming a forgotten man in one of the best divisions in MMA. That version of Calvin Kattar, swinging those elbows back and forth, looking to brain a motherfucker? That’s a fighter reclaiming a narrative. That’s a fighter turning his career back around. That’s a fighter who’s weaponizing his best traits: just being a tough, badass dude.
Goddamn, it was great to see.
The Big Fight 