Pics: Kattar’s elbows leave road-map on Chikadze’s face

Is it too early to talk about Fight of the Year?

Last night Calvin Kattar and Giga Chikadze put on a show in the main event of the UFC’s 2022 curtain opener. The pair left it all in the cage and delivered a Fight of the Year candidate that resulted in a unanimous decision win for Kattar.

The fight was a stand-up feast that saw Kattar land 144 significant strikes on Chikadze. The Georgian fired back with 128 significant strikes of his own. Kattar was able to score a knockdown and a pair of takedowns, too.

Comparing damage is a rube’s game when determining the winner of a fight. Some folks just cut and bleed more easily than others. However, if you were only using that metric to judge the fight you would have still also given it to Kattar.

Check out below to see all the wreckage that was left on Chikadze’s face after five rounds against probably the sharpest elbows in MMA.

Chikadze seemed to revel in his war wounds, sharing a selfie with his rival. That selfie showed one eye swollen shut and the other not far behind.

To see how Chikadze got there, check out the gallery below. It shows off some of the precision strikes Kattar was able to catch him with.

For Kattar the win was a big middle finger to all who doubted he could come back from the beating he took against Max Holloway in his last contest. That fight, a main event on Fight Island a year ago today, saw Holloway rack up nine all-time UFC records for the amount of strikes he landed on Kattar.

The win also gives Kattar a 7-3 record in the UFC. His only other losses are to Zabit Magomedsharipov and Renato Moicano. Around those losses he’s secured wins over Dan Ige, Jeremy Stephens and Ricardo Lamas.

The loss takes some lustre of of Chikadze. He came into the bout riding a nine fight win streak. He had won his past three bouts by TKO, beating Edson Barboza, Cub Swanson and Jamey Simmons.