The ‘Boston Finisher’ is still undergoing concussion protocol says training partner Rob Font.
Calvin Kattar may have lasted all five rounds against Max Holloway back at UFC on ABC in mid-January, but he walked away from the bout having absorbed an ungodly amount of punishment from the former featherweight king.
Over 25 minutes, Holloway landed 447 of his 746 strikes thrown. Connecting at a 59% rate and delivering 141 strikes in round 4 alone. To say it was an ass kicking would be a severe understatement. So perhaps it’s entirely for the best that Kattar’s home camp, the New England Cartel, is making him take things very slowly for any potential return to the Octagon.
Kattar was handed a minimum suspension of 60 days, with 45 days no contact, following his loss to Holloway. That period is all done and dusted now. However, as training partner (and current top-ranked UFC bantamweight) Rob Font recently revealed, Kattar’s coaches still have him undergoing concussion protocol—although Font claims that Kattar isn’t actually suffering from a concussion.
“He’s in and out (of the gym),” Font revealed in a recent interview with James Lynch (transcript via MyMMANews). “He’s kind of still going through concussion protocols. He’s not concussed but they’re just babying him right now. So they’re having him do a lot of like little hand-eye coordination things, balance drills. Stuff like that — boring, non-contact type of stuff…”
“We’re trying to kick him out of the gym because he’s getting anxious, He’s kind of getting to that point where he wants to start moving around more. It’s like a little baby, we’re just trying to baby him right now. Like, ‘Slow down, you’ve got a lot of big fights, a busy year, just take time off and just hang out.’ But it’s hard, especially coming off of a loss. You want to get back and you want to fix everything you thought you messed up, and right now we can’t. So it’s one of those things where I want him back in the gym, but he shouldn’t be in the gym, so we’re trying to think of ways to keep him active inside the gym.”
Kattar was facing a potential suspension of up to six months, following the bout, but that was in order to treat a very likely broken nose. No word yet on when Kattar might be back to full training or looking to fight again. In the meantime, it sounds like he and his team are taking the appropriate steps to make sure that when he does step back in the cage, it’s in full health.