On a card that looked underwhelming before it started, it managed to actually underwhelm in reality. Look, I'm not one of those people who start booing as soon as a fight hits the mat. I not only appreciate wrestling and grappling, but find myself enjoying it when it's done at a high level. However, I'm not one of those fans who acts like they're better than everyone and tries to convince everyone that top control with no ground and pound or submission attempts is exciting to watch either. Unfortunately, we saw a lot of grappling on this card. Seeing too much of a particular style in successive fights also diminishes how interesting it is. For example, Billy Quarantillo vs Shane Burgos was a really good striking battle with both fighters throwing with good power and volume. However, because it followed Justin Gaethje vs Michael Chandler, no one really cared about it. Seeing so many fights in a row that followed the same general pattern led to this card feeling really stagnant at times. There were a couple bright spots, particularly once we got into the main card a little bit. There was some intrigue in Slava Claus's debut and Royval always puts on a solid fight. Algeo vs Brito was a good fight and of course the main event was an awesome fight. Collier vs Sherman was a nice change of pace as both guys were landing big before the finish came. You guys are here to talk about Giga Chikadze and Calvin Kattar, so let's stop wasting time.
I have to start with Calvin Kattar. What a performance. I picked Giga in my full card picks post, but I said in my full breakdown to not be surprised if we get a really solid showing from Calvin Kattar. Not only did we get a solid showing, we got what may have been the best performance of his entire career. I was curious to see how Kattar looked because we haven't seen him in basically a year and when we did, he was suffering one of the most lopsided beatdowns in the modern history of the sport. To see Kattar come back both physically and mentally from what happened against Max was really great to see. It wasn't hyperbole to think that Kattar may never physically be the same after how much damage he sustained. I've never fought, but I assume losing in that fashion can really shake someone's confidence and lead to them never quite being the same as well. Kattar showed no symptoms of anything and was the old Calvin Kattar, if not better. Kattar did all of the things you would expect him to do. He came in with a boxing heavy approach, got in his opponents face, and threw punches in combinations. Kattar's power and volume looked great as it typically does. His chin held up just fine, as it typically does. One new wrinkle that we saw from him was a little more willingness to grapple. Now, I'm not familiar enough with the technique to be able to say if Kattar used the time off to improve his offensive wrestling or if Giga was just not defending very well. I was watching the fights without the volume because I had the NFL playoffs on the main TV, so maybe they discussed it on the broadcast and I just don't know about it. I really don't know what else to say about his performance. His striking was crisp with good speed and power. He wrestled well and mixed that in to keep Giga off balance. He was able to pressure well, while having both his chin and his cardio hold up pretty much without issue. All things considered, this was as close to a perfect performance as you could expect from Calvin Kattar this week.
That leaves us to wonder when we'll see Kattar next and who he'll be across the cage from. It seems like The Korean Zombie will be getting the next title shot, so he won't be an option. Of course, fighting for the title himself was going to be unlikely coming off of only 1 win against the number 8 ranked Giga. Max is also potentially unavailable due to his injury and they weren't going to be booking that rematch anyways. I always say in these that the UFC likes to book fighters who are trending in the same direction, but that may be tough for Kattar. If we're only looking at fighters coming off of wins for the moment, without dropping too far down the rankings, the only options are Arnold Allen and Josh Emmett. Arnold Allen is rumored to be fighting on the March 19 card that is supposed to take place in England, so I assume they already have an opponent in mind. That would be a really quick turnaround for Kattar as well, so that one seems unlikely. I do like the Emmett fight and think that makes a lot of sense for both men. They were both out for an extended stretch then came back and got a win against a fighter who was lower than them in the rankings. They're right next to each other at 5 and 6 right now before they get updated on Tuesday, so I think that may be the early front runner. The only other options that I think Kattar would even be remotely interested in would be Yair Rodriguez and Brian Ortega. I much prefer the idea that Ortega and Yair fight each other, but maybe Kattar draws one of them. Neither of the two have been particularly active over the last few years, so it's hard to estimate when either one wants to return and will be ready to return. Ortega last fought in September against Volkanovski for the title. His last fight before that was the previous October in 2020. His last fight before that was his loss to Max Holloway for the title all the way back in 2018. Ortega took a tremendous amount of damage in that loss to Volk and for an attractive man who already has acting experience with 2 title shot losses in his last 3 fights, I wouldn't be all that surprised if he just opted not to fight anymore. Given his 2 failed attempts, he's probably not likely to get another title shot in the relatively near future and with so many other options for him, it would make sense to me. He's been brutalized in 2 of his last 3 and he could decide to just walk away and preserve his health and no one would blame him. He seems really happy in his relationship with Tracey Cortez and maybe that will be his priority. Of course, if he wants to return and try to make another run, I would love to see it. Ortega is a great fighter and really fun to watch, but I don't think it's for sure he comes back at all and even if he does, there's no telling when as he's taken a lot of time off over the last handful of years. Rodriguez also hasn't been very active, but he has a few reasons why. His health has played a part in things and after his latest loss at the hands of Max Holloway, his foot was badly swollen. I never saw an update as to how injured it actually was, but it didn't look good at all. I would find it hard to believe it swelled to that extent and nothing was broken, but obviously I don't know for sure. Rodriguez was also suspended by USADA for not updating his location. I don't fully understand how the process works, but if you don't know, I can try to explain it to the best of my knowledge. As far as my understanding goes, there is an app that all fighters have that lists where they are so that if they are selected for a random test, the USADA worker knows where to find them. The fighter just has to update the app if they go on vacation or wherever they are going to be. Apparently, Rodriguez failed to update that on more than one occasion that led to him being suspended. Rodriguez also said that he had COVID at one point, which obviously prevented him from fighting. I would love to see Yair and Ortega fight Kattar, but I just can't with any confidence say that they should or could be the next fight because I just have no expectation of when we'll see them again at all. With that said, I think Kattar and Emmett are both looking for the same things in their next opponent and they provide that for each other. They're both highly ranked and are at a similar point in their current run. That fight makes all the sense to me. I said I wanted Emmett vs The Korean Zombie a couple of months ago, but with that no longer being an option, I think these two are perfect for each other.
For as positive as everything was that I said about Kattar, I assume a lot of people are coming to see me blast Giga's performance. The truth is, I don't think Giga actually fought all that poorly. It wasn't the best version of him I've ever seen, but he was still largely what I expected. There was a couple things I noticed about Giga. Early in the fight, I was thinking to myself that he looked way more powerful with his hands than I remember. It turns out that I think Giga was intentionally putting a little more behind his shots and when we saw him tire later in the fight, a lot of that power was gone. It seemed like he wanted to put Kattar away early and when he didn't go down, Giga was a little out of sorts. Putting that extra juice on his punches early likely contributed to him tiring faster than Kattar did. The second thing that I noticed was that I didn't think he used his kicks nearly enough or as much as he typically does. It seemed to me in the Barboza fight that he was blasting kicks over and over again. I don't know if it was intentional on his part, but it seemed to me that he went away from his kicks for long stretches in the middle of the fight. Kicks to me are what sets Giga apart from your typical striker and when he went away from them, he looked a lot more ordinary. The final thing I noticed in the cage is kind of a paired answer. He seemed to have issues with both his grappling and his cardio. Now, I know these things often go together, so I can't see which one caused the other, but it overall contributed a lot to his loss. I thought Giga was winning the first round up until he slipped. After he hit the ground, Kattar jumped on him and controlled him for the rest of the round, but he didn't do much damage at all. In fact, after the round ended, one of the tweets they put on the screen said the person gave the first round to Giga, that's how little damage Kattar did with the control time. However, it seemed like that few minutes of control completely changed Giga. He got up and he looked exhausted and he was just a step behind Kattar from then on. Kattar isn't known for his wrestling, but he was even able to land another takedown later in the fight. Like I said before, I don't know enough about the nuances of wrestling to say how much Kattar improved, but I do know that he never landed takedowns before and there's only so much someone can improve in a calendar year. That leads me to believe Giga's grappling defense needs some work, which is fine. He's still a young fighter who doesn't have tons of experience, especially at the top of the division. The cardio issues though are something that he could and should have had taken care of. Everyone knew Kattar was going to get in Giga's face and come after him. We all knew that Kattar was going to try to put a pace on Giga that he didn't think he could match. Yet, somehow, that's exactly what happened. I said in my preview that a key to this fight, as it is with most fights, is who can dictate the action. In this case, both men wanted to strike, so dictating the striking or grappling aspect wasn't as much of an issue. However, I said Kattar wants to put on the pressure and throw with volume, while Giga is a more patient striker who opts to try and pick his opponents apart at a slower pace. Kattar was able to dictate that pace and he got Giga tired in the later rounds when he was the much fresher fighter. This is where I want to parlay into the outside of the cage stuff because I think there's an overlap. Giga spent much of fight week calling out Volkanovski for a title opportunity as if he didn't have this fight directly in front of him. Combine that stuff with the fact that we saw him, not completely gas out, but tire rather quickly, and it's hard to say he wasn't looking past Kattar. I'm not going to say that he thought it would be a complete cake walk, but clearly he wasn't as prepared as he could've been. It really seems like he took this fight lightly and hopefully he'll learn from it and be better for it in the long run, but there's no guarantees in this sport. Just because you make a run into the top 10 or top 5 at a young age and fall short doesn't mean you'll have those opportunities in the future. For Giga to come into this fight seemingly underprepared is a huge mistake on his part. I'm not someone who sits on this site and disrespects fighters, I think you guys all know that by now. I don't sit behind my screen and claim that I could step in there and defeat anybody. I'm not even in that great of shape to be honest. However, when you have a fighter who spends all fight week talking about taking another fight in a few months while hardly mentioning the fight they have this weekend and then they show up for that fight and gas out rather quickly relative to their opponent in the midst of the worst beating of their career, it's hard to say that he took this fight as seriously as he should have. Maybe that's being harsh and if someone who knows Giga for some reason sees this I'm sure they wouldn't be thrilled, but at some point I just have to say it how it is. I could be completely wrong, but the only information I have is what I was presented with. I heard all week about how Giga wants to fight for the title. Then Saturday comes and I see Giga losing all 5 rounds to Calvin Kattar in convincing fashion while he's gassing out early and Kattar looks completely in control the entire time. With all that said, I do still believe in Giga's talent. He's still an incredible striker and there's not many who would be able to stand with him like Kattar did. It was clear that Giga does need to work on his grappling. Even if Kattar did improve noticeably, there's only so much you can learn in one year and Giga struggled with what Kattar presented him in that facet. Giga needs to be able to keep fights standing and get back up when he does go down and I'm confident that with the appropriate amount of work, he can add those skills to his game over time. I'm not giving up on Giga by any means, I was just a little disappointed in what I saw based on his comments during fight week.
The most obvious opponent for Giga in my eyes would be Dan Ige. These are both fighters coming off of a loss to highly ranked opponents and are looking to get back in the win column to get another top 5 shot. I think this would be a good fight for Giga as well because Ige is primarily a striker, but he can mix in wrestling at times. He's not a fantastic wrestler, but he can do it at a level that Giga will have to respect. He'll have to prepare for the possibility of getting taken down, which I don't imagine he was expecting at all from Kattar. If Giga prepares for it and then still gets taken down repeatedly by Ige, then there's a larger problem at hand, but that will give him at least a place to start. This feels similar to Kattar and Emmett to me. It's to guys right next to each other in the rankings, who are in almost identical situations, trending in the same direction, and looking for the same thing. A lot of the other featherweights in the rankings right now are already booked, so Giga may have to wait if he doesn't want that fight. Movsar Evloev isn't booked, but he just pulled out of a fight against Ilia Topuria, so I assume he isn't ready to be booked right now. The only other open option would be Shane Burgos, who is a little lower, but coming off a win over Billy Quarantillo. I don't think Giga gets the Josh Emmett fight himself because Emmett is on a really good run and could be maybe another win or two away from a title shot, so he won't be looking to fight down against someone coming off of a loss. I think both options are solid, but I just like Dan Ige way more for Giga. I think that's more the type of test he needs right now.
What do you guys think? What were your main takeaways from the fight? Who do you want to see Calvin Kattar fight next? What about Giga Chikadze? Was anything I said about their performances off the mark? Is there anything I left out? Leave any and all thoughts in the comments. As always, thanks for reading and have a good one.
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