Now that I am fully back from vacation, I can come back to bringing you guys full time posts again and we'll start with what just happened on Saturday. I am sick though, so I'm hoping that it doesn't get too much worse than what it already is. The card from this weekend was pretty insane and hopefully this is the pathway towards the UFC doing more and more live Fight Nights like we saw pre pandemic. I honestly don't mind the Apex shows that much, but I would much prefer them to be the "change of pace" instead of the norm. Being able to hear the fighters, the impact of the strikes, and the corners is very interesting to me personally, but not when it happens for 75% of the events or more. I think one event at the Apex here and there, especially those cards where the main event wouldn't draw close to a full crowd, is perfectly fine, but the cards with the meaningful fights in the main event need a crowd. Anyways, the main event between Josh Emmett and Calvin Kattar delivered a very interesting back and forth fight. On a night that saw so many finishes and a lot of them devastatingly vicious, a back and forth split decision still stole the show. Let's talk about what we saw from each fighter and what could be next for them after this fight.
Josh Emmett came out on the winning side of the split decision in what was an extremely close fight. Personally, I had the fight 48-47 in favor of Kattar and I think that was the most popular scorecard that I saw across social media in general. Chris Lee managed to mangle the scorecards again, which is sort of becoming his calling card as a judge these days, by giving Emmett the 4th round, which is an interesting decision to say the least. To me, Kattar winning the 4th and 5th was pretty clear, but apparently not. If one scored the fight for Emmett, the only way to do so, in my opinion, would have been to give him the first three rounds. While that isn't what my scorecard looked like, I don't think giving Emmett the first three is an unreasonable take at all. With that said, I thought Emmett fought really well and I'm certainly not upset that he was given the nod. Emmett largely did what he does in this one. He throws his strikes with massive power and explosion. His strikes were clearly the more impactful shots being thrown and when he landed, it was noticeable. Almost every strike that got through was causing Kattar to take a couple of steps backwards and I think that is what the judges latched on to. He mixed in just enough of his kicks and takedown attempts to keep Kattar honest, which I think was a really important aspect of this fight for him. Ultimately, I think the most important thing that Emmett did to win this fight was to force Kattar to feel his power early. It was crucial that Emmett limit the output of Kattar and landing his power shots early forced Kattar to be more conservative and kept the striking numbers close. When Emmett can keep the total strikes basically even, he is going to come out on top often because his strikes will almost always be more powerful and damaging. I think this fight played out in a way that Emmett needed it to and he was able to just edge out the decision win.
When trying to determine what exactly is next for Emmett, we have to look at the featherweight division as a whole. 145 lbs is almost a tale of two divisions at this point. Champion Alexander Volkanovski and number one contender Max Holloway are set to battle it out for a third time in a few weeks and they've separated themselves from the pack by such a large margin, that it is hard to imagine either of them losing to someone other than each other any time soon. The problem here is that if Volkanovski beats Holloway again, he'll have a 3-0 advantage and it would be unprecedented for them to fight again. That means we are going to need another contender to fight for the title, whether that is for Volkanovski's next defense or if Holloway wins and then he will eventually need another opponent (assuming a Holloway win results in an immediate quadrology). In short, I think Josh Emmett should be rooting for a Volkanovski win come July 2nd as that would be his easiest route to a title shot. If that were to be the case, I think he is on the short list of guys who would have a real argument to get that fight. His main competition for the number one contender spot (assuming a Volkanovski win) would be the winner of the upcoming Brian Ortega vs Yair Rodriguez fight. Given how well Rodriguez performed against Max Holloway, I think that if he were to get the win over Ortega, that he would probably get the shot over Emmett. However, should Ortega win, I think that puts Emmett in the driver's seat for the title shot since Ortega lost his last fight to Volkanovski in dominant fashion. However, with either a Holloway win or a Rodriguez win, Emmett would probably need another opponent before getting his title shot. In that case, I think a potential matchup with either of Ortega or Rodriguez would make sense. A Holloway win paired with a Rodriguez win would probably set up an immediate rematch for Volkanovski and that would make an Emmett/Rodriguez fight a very clear number one contender bout. Similarly, an Ortega win with a Holloway win would set up a fight between Emmett and Ortega for the number one contender spot. I think an Ortega win and a Volkanovski win gives Emmett the title shot. Where things are open is if we get a Volkanovski win and a Rodriguez win. That probably sets up a Volkanovski vs Rodriguez title fight, but then Emmett would need an opponent for the number one contender fight. The only other fighter that has any merit to a potential number one contender bout right now is Arnold Allen and I think that would be the fight to make at that point. They could, at least in theory, make an Emmett/Korean Zombie fight or Emmett vs Ortega (if he lost to Yair), but then that risks a potential scenario where Emmett would lose and put us right back in the situation we are now where there really isn't a next obvious challenger. Emmett has done his part for the time being, it is just a matter of how the rest of the division unfolds around him over the next month.
As for Calvin Kattar, I don't think he fought poorly in the slightest. While I still thought he edged out the win late, I don't think he fought to the very best of his ability. His path to victory was going to be to out strike Emmett with his cleaner technical boxing and volume based approach. For whatever reason, Kattar wasn't able to get off nearly as many strikes as he normally would and that allowed Emmett's power to be more meaningful. Because the striking numbers were largely even for most rounds, the rounds went Emmett's way since he was doing more damage per strike. The broadcast picked up Kattar saying that he was having trouble getting his strikes off because he saw Emmett loading up for his own strikes. I would have thought that Kattar would have trusted his better overall boxing to counter Emmett when he saying him loading up, but maybe Emmett's power was just in his head. I hate to be too critical because I did think Kattar won the fight, but I thought that there was room him to be more aggressive and separate himself in terms of total strikes landed.
Despite the loss, I don't think Calvin Kattar is necessarily in all that bad of a spot. Due to the state of the division, he is probably only 2 consecutive wins away from a potential title shot of his own. There are two pretty easy matchups that are sitting right there for Kattar and the first is the Korean Zombie. I imagine that after the update to the rankings on Tuesday morning that Kattar and Zombie will still be next to each other and they're both coming off of a loss. This kind of seems like the next logical place to go for the both of them to be completely honest. The other most obvious spot would be for Kattar to face the loser of Ortega and Yair. They would both be coming off of a loss in a title eliminator type of fight and that opponent would be the quickest way for both fighters to jump right back into the title conversation. I suppose that matchups with Arnold Allen and Bryce Mitchell have some degree of potential, but they seem much less likely at this moment. I think Mitchell could be looking at a fight with Movsar Evloev or Giga Chikadze next and Allen has potentially 4 or 5 different options depending on when exactly his health allows him to return to action. I think the Zombie matchup is probably the most likely and then things will open up from there. It seemed like Zombie wasn't really sure what he wanted for his career after losing to Volkanovski, but he has since looked committed to continuing his career. I think a fight with Kattar would be a fun matchup and a fight that would be plenty entertaining. I do fear the UFC would make it a main event, but it is what it is.
What did you guys think of the fight? How did you score it? What did you make of each fighter's performance? Who do you want to see them fight next? As always, thanks for reading and have a good one. Thanks for sticking with me after the vacation and we're back to the normal schedule now. Since I was gone all of last week, I'll be mixing in some stuff from UFC 275 this week as well.
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