Giga Chikadze may have saw his seven-fight winning streak in the UFC come to an end on Saturday night after a unanimous decision loss to Calvin Kattar in a headlining stand-up war at UFC On ESPN 32, but he remains defiant in defeat and believes that he still beats his opponent 90% of the time.
“I feel like if I would fight with this guy 10 times, 9 I would win,” Chikadze said on Facebook Live as the dust settled on the fight. “That would be the one I would lose and that was last night. It is what it is. I made mistake and I’m paying now with it. It’s all good. Guys, I’m unbreakable. Remember this sh*t, Georgians always unbreakable. This is how we fight, until the f*cking end.”
Chikadze went on to say that he learned some valuable lessons from his first loss in the UFC and he’ll now be looking to make that count when he next steps into the Octagon.
“It is what it is,” Chikadze said. “It was not my day but it’s okay. Sometimes it happens, sh*t. It was a good fight. My opponent showed up good, I made mistake…
“I’m gonna recover a little bit, guys. I know you guys are following my journey, and this is a part of the journey. When I signed up for the sport, I knew this was a part (of it). I f*cked up last night but it’s all good. It’s a journey. I’m learning from this and next time I’m gonna come back so much stronger. I already feel bad for my future opponents. I’m gonna learn a lot from this one, trust me on that.”
Chikadze certainly gave a good account of himself, particularly early in the fight, but cardio did appear to be an issue, particularly after an early grappling exchange, which is not unsurprising given that Kattar was pushing an extremely high pace, while has was also able to limit the space the former kickboxer had to work with as he continually pressed forward.
That being said, Chikadze showed his toughness by enduring the best Kattar could throw at him and never stopped trying to fight back, even when his strikes no longer had the sting in them that they had earlier in the fight, and as such he comes out of this bout with reasons still to be optomistic about his future in the top 10 of the featherweight ranks.
