Preview: UFC on ESPN 37 ‘Kattar vs. Emmett’

Sign up for ESPN+ and watch UFC on ESPN: Kattar vs. Emmett

Texas has gotten its fair share of cards since the Ultimate Fighting Championship opened back up to live attendance, and the promotion’s return to Austin this Saturday serves as yet another strong affair from the Lone Star State. The UFC on ESPN 37 main event, a featherweight banger between potential contenders Calvin Kattar and Josh Emmett, mixes guaranteed action with high stakes. Beyond that, everything on this six-fight main draw should be entertaining. The co-headliner sees Donald Cerrone and Joe Lauzon square off in a battle of action legends that somehow has not already happened, and right below it sits the second fight of Kevin Holland’s welterweight campaign: a solid test against Tim Means. Add in a pairing of perhaps the UFC’s two most underrated lightweights—Damir Ismagulov and Guram Kutateladze—to go along with some middleweight weirdness, and overall, this is about as strong of an ESPN show as you could ask for.

Now to the UFC on ESPN 37 “Kattar vs. Emmett” preview:

Featherweights

#4 FW | Calvin Kattar (23-5, 7-3 UFC) vs. #7 FW | Josh Emmett (17-2, 8-2 UFC)

ODDS: Kattar (-235), Emmett (+190)

Alexander Volkanovski and Max Holloway seem comfortably entrenched at the top of the UFC’s featherweight division, but this headliner is an excellent bout that should help sort out things right below them. It has been a UFC career full of ups and downs for Kattar, who was already an unheralded 10-year vet by the time he got the late-notice call in 2017. Despite the lack of hype, Kattar impressed greatly in his UFC debut against Andre Fili, with a subsequent win over Shane Burgos in his hometown of Boston establishing Kattar as a potential top featherweight to watch. Kattar settled into a tier right below contender status for the next bit, as longer and more offensively diverse fighters like Renato Carneiro and Zabit Magomedsharipov gave his boxing-heavy style some trouble. However, he rebounded well with a more power-heavy approach, knocking out Jeremy Stephens and clearly winning a five-round headliner against Dan Ige. That set up Kattar for a huge opportunity to kick off 2021, taking on Holloway in the first UFC main event of the year. It did not go well, to say the least. Holloway consistently beat Kattar to the literal punch and left him crossed up in one of the more impressive one-sided beatings in recent memory. By the end of the fight, Holloway was even winning exchanges without looking at Kattar, instead talking to the announce team at cageside while still managing to dodge punches. The worry was that it was a career-altering loss, given that Kattar took a hellish amount of damage over 25 minutes, but while it took him a year to return for his next fight, he looked as impressive as ever upon his comeback. This time, against Giga Chikadze, it was Kattar who took the initiative and left his opponent struggling to keep up. After establishing his rarely seen offensive wrestling game early, Kattar managed to pressure Chikadze and fire on all cylinders for a hugely important rebound victory. The nature of the Holloway loss will probably loom over Kattar’s career forever in terms of his ability to hang with the featherweight elite, but he is still within spitting distance of a title shot as long as he keeps chaining together high-profile wins, which would include a potential victory against Emmett.

Emmett has had a similar path to Kattar, starting off his UFC career as an unheralded fighter while scoring some big wins and suffering some rough moments during his climb up the featherweight ladder. Emmett came to the UFC as a lightweight and looked solid enough early on, but a 2017 cut to featherweight seemed to immediately pay dividends for the Californian in terms of power. While he did not knock out Felipe Arantes over the course of his 145-pound debut, it felt like Emmett was able to knock down the Brazilian every time he connected over the course of 15 minutes. Even though Emmett impressed, it was still a shock when he got a late-notice call to face then-top contender Ricardo Lamas less than two months later. Emmett rewarded the faith of whoever decided to give him the shot, knocking Lamas out cold in just a shade over four and a half minutes. That appeared to launch Emmett into contender status, but after his subsequent main event spot against Jeremy Stephens, the worry was that he would become a footnote. The fight ended with a brutal series of punches from Stephens, leaving Emmett with multiple facial fractures that threatened his career. After a year-plus layoff, Emmett did rebound with two straight knockout wins before winning a three-round war over Burgos to re-establish himself as a contender. Naturally, Emmett suffered a torn ACL almost immediately upon the start of that fight, so while he somehow managed to fight three hard rounds on one leg, the injury required another year-plus layoff. In his late 30s and dependent on his power and athleticism, the worry was that this would be the injury that would fully diminish Emmett, but he looked as good as ever in December, winning a three-round scrap against Ige and setting himself up for this main event. Given his age, the window may close for Emmett at any moment, but as both a reliably violent fighter and a fresh contender for whoever walks away as champion after UFC 276, he could set himself up as the next title challenger with a victory.

Kattar’s ability to rebound with his win over Chikadze was obviously a good sign, though it is unclear what from that performance will carry over against a much different test in Emmett. In recent years, Kattar’s style has trended a lot more towards throwing power at the expense of technique. Given the level of craft that Kattar was starting from, it was a worthy gamble, though it turned out to cost him dearly once he ran into Holloway. Kattar did follow a smart gameplan for the fight against Chikadze, mixing things up with his wrestling and refusing to give the Kings MMA standout much space to work, which raises some key questions. It is clearly a positive that Kattar prepared well to fight his best fight against Chikadze, but how much will he be able to back off his increased reliance on power and pressure, given that it is likely to lead him right into Emmett’s type of fight? Emmett has done well to improve over the course of his UFC career. While his success mostly centers around being able to throw knockout power with impressive consistency and cardio, he has mixed things up later in his career in terms of his arsenal and occasional takedowns. At his core, Emmett is still a headhunter who looks to trade; and while Kattar has been able to pull off being a damage sponge in the past, it is probably not a smart idea to test that against Emmett. This is a relatively even fight, but there are a few things that tip the scales slightly towards Kattar, mostly due to his potential ability to adjust. If Kattar can turn back the clock a bit and work more with his jab, it should pay dividends against the much squatter and bricked-up Emmett. While Emmett has rounded out his game beyond his core tendencies, one of those tendencies is still to sit back and counter rather than apply consistent pressure. If Emmett comes in with a more aggressive mindset and refuses to give Kattar space to work, he could wind up winning a brutal war of attrition simply by being the harder hitter. There is a chance he even does that if Kattar is dictating the terms of engagement. However, with Kattar’s durability and what he has shown in the past, the bet is that he guts out a tough fight. The pick is Kattar via decision.

Jump To »
Kattar vs. Emmett
Cerrone vs. Lauzon
Holland vs. Means
Duraev vs. Buckley
Ismagulov vs. Kutateladze
Rodrigues vs. Marquez
Yanez vs. Kelley
Jasudavicius vs. Cristina da Silva
McGee vs. Wells
Ramos vs. Chavez
de Paula vs. Oliveira
Stamann vs. Wineland
Hawes vs. Winn
Daukaus vs. Dolidze