5. Aljamain Sterling vs Calvin Kattar
The headlines in this one revolve around the former bantamweight champion, one of the best 135-lb MMA fighters ever, moving up to featherweight for the first time, but similarly interesting is how well Calvin Kattar has recovered from his torn ACL he suffered against Arnold Allen eighteen months ago. Before that loss, where his own mistakes led to the injury, Kattar’s previous two fights included one of his career-best performances, a beat down against the streaking Giga Chikadze (which I wrote my first-ever article on), and a close loss, arguably a robbery, against Josh Emmett which would have put him in an interim title fight if he won. Those two, and the beatdown he suffered against Max Holloway before, made up a three-fight ‘Fight of the Night’ bonus streak, three of five he has earned in the UFC. Although Calvin has not won by knockout since 2020, that Stephens knockout and the three before it over Ricardo Lamas, Chris Fishgold, and Shane Burgos all showed the power and technical boxing proficiency that Kattar possesses.
Facing a bigger man with good takedown defense and that sort of elite boxing is a tough ask for someone moving up a weight class, but if anyone can do it it’s Aljamain Sterling. This is the man who ran through Cory Sandhagen, who stopped the dominance of Petr Yan, who has completely nullified the striking of ranked contenders who should be better strikers than him on paper like Jimmie Rivera, Pedro Munhoz, and Renan Barao without even needing to threaten takedowns. The kicking game of ‘Funkmaster’ lives up to his nickname; though his unorthodox striking style may not be the most brutal, it is effective at maximizing his awkward length, pressuring opponents back, and making them unable to read his attacks. And that is all without even discussing his grappling, which is some of the best in the sport’s history, particularly when he gets to the back. Kattar has had elite takedown defense his entire career, but so did Petr Yan, Henry Cejudo, and TJ Dillashaw, and Sterling beat them on the mat by setting up/disguising his shots well and by chaining wrestling attacks together to get them down at the second or third effort, or simply ducking under to take the back with his jits when he cannot get an opponent to the mat with traditional wrestling.
If these two were in their primes and not coming off of significant medical issues then this would be a 9 or 10/10 fight, but as it stands today it is still a great fight on paper, and if Sterling can pull it off then the UFC may have a new contender on their hands in a featherweight division which needs new challengers.
Fight Rating: 8/10
