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Following the win, which landed Kattar at the number six spot in the 145-pound rankings, it was a familiar ritual, albeit one thrown off a bit to the pandemic.
“You know what the post-fight meal is – it’s always cutlets,” laughed Kattar. “I’m a big cutlet guy. The one day I had off (before the Stephens fight), which was Easter Sunday, I woke up to cutlets and it was a beautiful thing. I can’t say how many I had. And after that it was back to work and then post-fight, right back at it again. It wasn’t the same, it was all to-go, so hopefully this time now that the restaurants are half open, I’m gonna sit down and hopefully get an in-house cutlet.”
Send the word out to the chefs on Yas Island that Calvin Kattar and his New England Cartel team will be searching out chicken parm on Wednesday night after the 32-year-old handles his business with Dan Ige in the UFC Fight Night main event. And until then, it is all business for Kattar, whose ability to handle all the craziness of the first half of 2020 wasn’t as easy as it looked. But for someone who came up the hard way to make it to the UFC and who has never taken any shortcuts along the way, it was a lot easier to deal with any obstacles in his way these days.
“I never wanted to rush getting to the UFC,” he said, and the mantras repeated by the Methuen native were simple and to the point.
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“When I’m ready, they’ll take me.”
“If I keep winning, they can’t deny me.”
It took over nine years as a pro to get his call to the big show in 2017. By then, he had paid his dues en route to a 16-2 record. His record since? 5-2, with wins over Stephens, Ricardo Lamas, Chris Fishgold, Shane Burgos and Andre Fili, and the only losses coming against Renato Moicano and Zabit Magomedsharipov. One hard road to another, but the first one made the second one manageable.