UFC Fight Night: Kattar vs Allen represents his fifth main event in a row and third of 2022 after topping the cards in Las Vegas and Austin in January and June, respectively.
“It’s crazy when you put it like that,” he said. “Honestly, I don’t look back and think about that much. I’m always on to the next fight, the next moment. And we work hard every day to just create these big moment opportunities, so I’m excited to have another one in front of me.”
Kattar’s first bout of 2022 came a whole year after he was on the unfortunate end of a career-best performance from former champion Max Holloway. Questions and doubts swirled around Kattar after the loss to “Blessed” – ones the Massachusetts-native had to eat in silence as he waited for his next fight to come to fruition. And when Kattar took on the surging Giga Chikadze, he silenced all of that noise with an emphatic unanimous decision win.
He parlayed that into a five-rounder against Josh Emmett. Although Kattar came away from the fight looking like the cleaner man and having outstruck his opponent, the split decision nod went the other way, which left Kattar plenty to think about.
“Just questions like, ‘What the f**k?’” he said. “It really sucked. But, I feel like I stand with the majority in thinking I did enough. But, at some point are you just going to cry about it and continue to look backwards or are you going to focus on what you can control? And that’s just putting the next foot forward and making the next guy pay for it.
