Calvin Kattar fell, but he certainly didn’t come out.
The New England native suffered a unanimous decision loss to Max Holloway last weekend in a Fight of the Night fight as the main fight of UFC Fight Island 7 in Abu Dhabi.
Despite absorbing more than 400 significant strokes in five rounds, Kattar refused to leave and was still attacking the former featherweight champion with everything in his arsenal until the final bell. After that, UFC president Dana White insisted that Kattar be rushed to a medical center for precautionary reasons, instead of staying to talk to the media after the fight.
Now, for the first time since Saturday, Kattar broke the silence with a statement posted on Instagram.
“Success in life comes when you simply refuse to give up,” wrote Kattar. “With goals so strong that obstacles, failures and losses only work as motivation.
“Support for Max in a hellish fight, he deserves all the praise. I am grateful for the commitment of my team in this fight. To the next. There is no stopping the man who does not give up. “
Kattar definitely deserves a ton of praise for her unwillingness to wilt in the face of tremendous pressure from Holloway, whose production and strikes have set new records within the UFC’s octagon.
While he fell short on the scoreboard, Kattar was constantly trying to stage a comeback while firing shots at Holloway during the rare moments when the Hawaiian was not advancing with combinations of five and six strokes.
In the end, Kattar’s two-game winning streak came to an end, but he left the octagon with Holloway’s respect and admiration from fans around the world who praised him for his endurance to survive this type of attack for five rounds.
Kattar will go home with an extra bonus of $ 50,000 for his part in the Fight of the Night, as he hopes to recover from that loss when he finally gets back to the action.