Man, it's been awhile since I did once of these and it feels good to get out of that division by division preview rut that we've been in on this site for the last week or so. This week finally brings the return of the UFC with their first card since last year. While the overall card is a little underwhelming and has started to fall apart a little due to fighters falling out left and right, the main event doesn't disappoint. We'll see Giga Chikadze face the biggest challenge of his career and we see the return of Calvin Kattar after being away for the last year. Let's see if I remember how to do these.
I'm going to start with Kattar. The last time we saw Calvin Kattar was the first UFC card of 2021 when he suffered a beat down at the hands of Max Holloway in what was probably one of the 5 greatest individual performances I've ever seen from an individual fighter. Kattar absorbed immense damage in that fight and I'm glad he took the rest of the year off. That was as much damage as I had seen a fighter take in some time. Holloway's win over Brian Ortega and Glover Teixeira's win over Anthony Smith are the two other most recent one sided, extended beatings I can recall. However, that's in the past and Kattar is looking to bounce back. That was the toughest test Kattar had ever faced and just because he wasn't ready for that super human version of Max doesn't mean he's just some average guy. Kattar has 5 career losses, and 2 of them have come in his last 4 fights. Obviously one loss was against Max and the other came at the hands of Zabit Magomedsharipov. Those losses bookend wins over Jeremy Stephens and Dan Ige. As for style, Kattar isn't going to bring anything that you haven't seen before. He's primarily a striker and on top of that, he's mostly a boxer who will mix in some elbows. He doesn't do a ton of kicking and he hasn't really needed it. He doesn't offer the threat of the takedown, but he does defend them pretty well and can keep the fighting standing where he wants it. Just because Kattar's style doesn't jump out at you, doesn't mean it's not effective. As you may expect from someone who trains with Rob Font, he has crisp striking. Kattar also offers pretty good power for the division as well and can find the finish when he lands flush. One of Kattar's best skills is his cardio. Kattar is active with his striking and stays that way for the entire fight. His activity levels will not slow down for as long as the fight is still happening and that's way more valuable than it sounds. Additionally, Kattar displays incredible toughness. We saw that on full display against Max Holloway, but even prior to that, we've seen Kattar take damage and still not quit on himself. In terms of weaknesses, there really isn't many. Kattar doesn't really offer much in terms of offensive wrestling, but I don't think that's necessarily a weakness, that's just not really an element of his game. The real weakness in Kattar's game is that he takes a tremendous amount of damage. Now, the Holloway fight really altered the stats in a way that makes them look worse than they are, but even then, it's just too many strikes. Kattar needs to tighten up his defense if he's going to be able to stand in the cage and walk out a winner against the top 5. His toughness has been enough in the past, but against fighters like Max and Alexander Volkanovski, he's going to have to make them miss. Those guys will not tire and will continue to throw for the entirety of the fight at the same rate that they started and it's on Kattar to avoid those shots and then land his own. I think Calvin Kattar has been disrespected some in the last year. His stock is way down after the loss and while I agree that it looked bad, I think that says more about Max than it did about Kattar. He's been disrespected some this week as well. When Max was forced to pull out of his trilogy fight with Volkanovski, a lot of people immediately threw Giga's name into the mix to take that spot as if this fight isn't happening. They made it seem as if it is just a foregone conclusion that Giga will walk over Kattar and I don't think that's necessarily the case. Calvin Kattar is someone who should be respected and is an extremely high level fighter. A win on Saturday puts him in the conversation for a potential title shot and no one is really mentioning that. Even though all of the public attention is on Giga, don't be too surprised if we see Kattar put on a really good performance.
Giga is the A side of this main event and he's really earned it. His latest run of 3 wins have been incredible. He's 14-2 overall for his career with his losses coming in his first professional fight and on Dana White's Contender Series. He made his UFC debut in 2019 and he's 7-0 in that time. If Giga has only been on your radar for his last few fights, you may be surprised to find out that he hadn't found a finish in the UFC until he knocked out Jamey Simmons 3 fights ago. He's gone one since then to finish Cub Swanson and Edson Barboza. Kattar is easily the toughest test of his career and I wouldn't expect him to finish Kattar unless he can catch him with something really unexpected. Giga's run has been fueled by his striking and especially his high level kicking game. He has good power, but nothing that really stands out in his hands, but his speed with his boxing serves as a big advantage for him. Kattar has fast hands as well, so it will be interesting to see who is quicker. Giga's left kick has been what's taken him from a good striker and tough fighter to potential title contender. His left kick to the body and then off of that, he mixes in the high kick has been absolutely devastating. He landed the high kick on Simmons for the knockout and the body kick dropped Cub Swanson and led to that finish. He was able to finish Barboza with his hands, which was a really good sign for Giga in my opinion. He actually went for a submission attempt against Barboza, which while I don't expect that to all of the sudden become a huge part of his game, I think the fact that he had the confidence to even try it says a lot. Much like Kattar, Giga will not be looking to take this fight to the ground, so the grappling aspect of this fight likely won't come into play. Giga has been throwing his name into the mix to fill in against Alex Volkanovski and if he can win, I think he has the strongest argument, but he still has to win. He's a pretty heavy favorite and that is probably because both fighters are trending in opposite directions in the eyes of the public. We've seen Giga get 3 finishes in a row and the last time we saw Kattar was a really bad loss. I don't need to tell you that Giga is a real threat in this one and a win on Saturday could potentially put him in a position to call for a title shot.
The part where I try to determine the main factors of the fight has become one of my favorite things I do on this site. I always have to say that I've never trained and I'm not like a "fight analyst" type, but I just try to articulate what I see as being some important factors based on what I do know. I always say that if you do train or coach or anything like that to leave a comment and let me know where I was right or if I missed something. The first thing that I think will determine how this fight goes is how Calvin Kattar feels coming into this fight. He hasn't fought in a year and the last time went about as sideways as a fight can be and still go to decision. The mental space that he's in will go a long way in determining what kind of result we get. If Kattar comes out and looks confident and fights in his typical style, then that will be a good sign. Even if he doesn't win the first round, I think how he looks in that round will say a lot. We can't quantify his confidence levels, but I hope for his own sake that he's not questioning himself. I imagine losing the way he did takes a toll on someone's confidence, but I hope that he's put all of that in the past and is ready to write the next chapter. In terms of tactics, I'm really interested to see who has the speed advantage. Both men are really quick when throwing their combinations and likely aren't used to being the slower guy. Someone will be faster and that will have a huge impact on how the fight plays out. Just based on what I've seen, I get the impression Giga is a touch faster. As long as Giga is faster, he'll be really comfortable. If they come out and Kattar is faster, that's when things can get interesting. Giga is more of a reserved striker where Kattar throws with more volume. If Kattar has greater volume and a speed advantage, that's when things would get a little dicey for Giga. I didn't put it into his section, but I think the final thing I want to say here is the general questions we have about Giga. How can his chin hold up and how can his cardio hold up? Now, we've seen Giga go the distance before and win decisions where he got hit, but those are 3 round fights on the prelims. Can Giga do these same things for 5 rounds against a top 5 opponent? I don't think he'll finish Kattar, so he's going to have to if he wants to get the win. Kattar is going to hit him and he's going to hit him with power. We've seen Giga get hit, but how does that sustained damage accumulate as the fight goes on. We know Kattar is going to throw with volume, but Giga isn't typically that kind of fighter. I don't think it's impossible that we see Kattar just overwhelm Giga as the fight goes on. It's one thing to take the damage in the first and second, but can Giga hold up to that consistent and sustained punishment into the fourth and fifth? I'm not saying he can't, but we just haven't really seen that from him at this level of opponent.
What do you guys think? Does Kattar bounce back in a big way? Or does Giga continue his run and push for a potential title shot? What do you agree with in my analysis of the main factors that will determine the outcome? Where am I wrong? What did I leave out that you think is important? Leave any and all thoughts below and thanks for reading.
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