Preview: UFC 300 Prelims

Featherweights

#15 P4P | Aljamain Sterling (23-4, 15-4 UFC) vs. #8 FW | Calvin Kattar (23-7, 7-5 UFC)

ODDS: Sterling (-170), Kattar (+142)

Sterling makes an interesting gambit here, as this marks the former bantamweight champion’s first fight in the UFC up at featherweight. Sterling was marked for greatness upon his UFC debut in 2015. There were some lazy comparisons to Jon Jones, who started his career at the same camp that Sterling began at, but “Funk Master” had all the tools to succeed at a high level thanks to his long frame and high-level wrestling and grappling skills. Sterling came storming out of the gates with a string of impressive performances to start his UFC career, but it took a while for the promotional machine to warm up to him, and naturally, as soon as Sterling started to get some shine, he had the roughest stretch of his career. Narrow decision losses to Bryan Caraway and Raphael Assuncao exposed the inefficiencies in Sterling’s game, and a brief rebound gave way to a brutal knockout loss against Marlon Moraes that seemingly closed the door on Sterling’s hopes for title contention. Sterling’s skills on the mat led him to rebound for a few more wins until what felt like a breakout performance against Jimmie Rivera in 2019. Sterling’s rangy striking game finally clicked into place in a way that tied into his wrestling, leading to him hitting another level and reeling off victories until an 88-second submission over Cory Sandhagen finally earned him a title shot. Petr Yan’s title defense against Sterling in 2021 wound up being historic, but not in a way that left anyone satisfied. Sterling got out to a hot start but burned himself out in the process, leaving Yan to take over the fight handily once Sterling exhausted. Then, faced with a grounded Sterling on one knee, Yan calmly delivered an illegal knee to the head that left Sterling unable to continue, making Sterling the first-ever UFC champion to win the title via disqualification. It’d be a year until the two could rematch thanks to some Sterling injuries, and during the entire time, the fanbase dismissed him as an undeserving champion that was just keeping the belt warm for Yan. But Sterling managed to affirm his championship mettle in the second fight, using his reach and wrestling to neutralize and frustrate Yan just enough to walk away with the narrow decision win and keep the belt. But that still didn’t do much to win over a fanbase that had seemingly already made up their mind on Sterling, and he never had the one dominant championship performance to silence those critics. A win over T.J. Dillashaw was a bit of a farce once it was revealed Dillashaw had been hiding a major shoulder injury, and his victory over Henry Cejudo was another narrow decision that people could pick apart. Once rising star Sean O’Malley knocked Sterling out to end his reign, the UFC quickly moved on from the now-former champion. Sterling has moved on himself, taking his talents up to 145 pounds.

Sterling’s first challenge is a perennial fringe contender in Kattar, who’s about the perfect level of test to see if Sterling can swim in the deep end of the featherweight division. Unlike Sterling, Kattar wasn’t any sort of heralded prospect when the UFC picked him up in 2017. Kattar had a solid record on the regional scene if not a particularly active one, and conventional wisdom was that Andre Fili would handle him without much issue. But after outboxing Fili and scoring a knockout of Shane Burgos to follow things up, it quickly became apparent that the New Englander would be an ongoing concern in the featherweight division. Kattar’s been a mainstay in the Top 10 in the years since but has struggled to find the one win to put him over the top, despite some adaptations over the years, moving a bit more towards a cruder power-punching game and even mixing in some wrestling in his 2022 victory over Giga Chikadze. But while that Chikadze win was a nice rebound from a brutal shellacking against Max Holloway, it hasn’t led to much momentum for Kattar in the time since. The scorecards went against Kattar in a slugfest against Josh Emmett that could’ve gone either way, and a torn ACL against Arnold Allen has kept Kattar out of action for nearly a year and a half leading into this fight. It’s a particularly fascinating matchup, especially since Sterling doesn’t seem suited to a move up in weight unless it unlocks something unexpected. His wrestling and grappling should translate well enough, but his significant reach advantage at bantamweight was taking care of a lot of his striking defense, something that got exploited by the similarly rangy but more practiced O’Malley. Kattar has similar dimensions to the man that dethroned Sterling, but this is at least a fight where the former bantamweight champ figures to have the speed advantage, as Kattar was slow-footed even before the recent knee injury. Sterling could just flit around and frustrate Kattar for the better part of 15 minutes, particularly with some leg kicks, though between the reach parity and Kattar’s boxing skill, there’s just as much of a chance of Kattar landing some big offense that could swing some rounds at the very worst. There’s also the wrestling phase, which is also somewhat of a question mark. Kattar’s a bit underrated on the mat given his preferred style of fight, and while that’s one of Sterling’s obvious strengths, Kattar’s combination of size and skill makes this another phase where things could swing either way. This is basically a coinflip, but given what Sterling has shown so far, a win here feels like it would be around the former bantamweight champion’s ceiling in his new weight class. With those question marks surrounding this move, in general, the full-time featherweight gets the benefit of the doubt. The pick is Kattar via decision.

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