“That loss was a little worse than others, obviously, but it is against a great fighter,” he continued. “So, as far as hanging my head, it wasn’t like that, but it was important for me to just go out and remind everybody and prove to myself that I do know why I belong at the top of the division with the best guys that the division has to offer.”
He and his New England Cartel team knew the dangers Chikadze presented, especially with his kickboxing. His famous “Giga kicks” helped dispatch Cub Swanson and Edson Barboza, so Kattar and crew expected a fast start from the Georgian.
About midway through the first round, Chikadze slipped after throwing a kick, and Kattar lunged in and secured a takedown, keeping Chikadze down for the better part of the round. Kattar said Chikadze felt “tense” while they were on the ground, exerting a lot of energy to keep Kattar from posturing up and landing ground-and-pound. In the ensuing rounds, Kattar knew he couldn’t let up on the pressure, and “the best defense is a good offense” when it came to negating Chiakdze’s striking.
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Normally known for his boxing, Kattar started to pour on an elbow-heavy attack, including a clean spinning elbow that stunned Chikadze. He started throwing elbows with so much frequency that his team wondered whether Kattar had injured his hands. The hands were, in fact, fine, with the elbow onslaught an “ad-lib” he credited his Muay Thai coach Jake Mainini for, as they sharpened up that area of his game over the last couple years.
“There’s no padding on the elbows,” Kattar said. “I started seeing him get affected from the damage, and I felt like I was close to getting the finish, so I started to get a little elbow-happy, gun-happy. At the end of that fifth round, I almost got the finish, but I ran out of time. I started liking the feedback I was getting from them. He wasn’t wearing it well, so I just started getting a little elbow-happy, and I wanted to put it on, but we have drilled it. We’ve done drills where you just kind of put it on with elbows, just laying it down.