Kattar vs Chikadze main event picks & odds | UFC Fight Night

Giga Chikadze will put his undefeated record in the UFC on the line this Saturday night when he takes on Calvin Kattar in the main event of UFC on ESPN 32. This is the first UFC card of the 2022 year and the promotion’s first event since December 18 of last year.

Giga Chikadze vs. Calvin Kattar betting preview

Giga Chikadze (14-2-0) is a perfect 9-0 over his last nine matches including a 7-0 record through his first seven fights in the UFC. Chikadze has scored technical knockout wins and Performance of the Night bonuses in each of his last three bouts, knocking out Jamey Simmons, Cub Swanson and Edson Barboza during that stretch. The win over Barboza helped catapult Chikadze into the top ten of the UFC’s featherweight ranking, and a win over No. 5 Calvin Kattar would come with another bump up in the rankings.

Calvin Kattar (22-5-0) earned Fight of the Night honors in his last match, but came out on the losing end of that five-round fight against Max Holloway. Kattar is now 4-3 over his last seven fights with three decision losses and three knockout wins over that run. Prior to his loss to Renato Moicano in 2018, Kattar had compiled a 10-0 undefeated run that included a 2-0 start in the UFC. Four of his last five wins have come by way of knockout.

It will be interesting to see if Kattar has any negative lingering effects from the loss against Holloway. In what was supposed to be a somewhat even striking matchup, Kattar was on the receiving end of a whopping 445 strikes, the most ever landed in a UFC match by a wide margin as the previous record was 290. Holloway isn’t the heaviest of hitters, but that’s still an awful lot of strikes to eat. Kattar’s toughness and durability did shine through in the loss, though he’ll obviously be looking to be on the dealing end of the damage this time around.

Unlike Kattar who throws and takes a ton of significant strikes, Chikadze is a patient fighter that waits for his spots. The 33-year-old averages 3.76 significant strikes per fight while absorbing only 2.69. This style should bode well against a heavy volume striker like Kattar. As the superior defender and the more versatile striker, look for Chikadze to let the fight come to him in this one and successfully pick away at Kattar with counter-attacks before eventually landing a fight-ending combo.