Josh Emmett is ready to go all five rounds if necessary against Calvin Kattar.
Emmett (17-2 MMA, 8-2 UFC) and Kattar (23-5 MMA, 7-3 UFC) square off in a high-stakes featherweight matchup in the UFC on ESPN 37 headliner June 18. In the UFC, Kattar has the experience advantage having gone five rounds in his past three fights. Emmett, on the other hand, will be headlining his first octagon show but doesn’t see himself slowing down at any point during the fight.
“People have always said I’ll gas out. Man, I have a great gas tank, and I can go for days,” Emmett told MMA Junkie Radio. “I feel like once the fight’s over too, I feel like I’m just getting warmed up, so I can go a few more rounds. I was a lightweight champion on a regional scene. I used to fight for West Coast Fighting Championship, so I was scheduled for two championship fights.
“One of them didn’t go the distance, I think I finished the guy in the third round. The other guy, I think I finished him in the fifth or fourth, but yeah that’s never an issue to me. I push myself so hard in training, and I welcome getting tired because I know I’m gonna get tired in the fight, so I put everything into all of my training sessions, and I push and push and push for more than 25 minutes. So I know 25 minutes won’t be an issue.”
Kattar is often dubbed as one of the best boxers in MMA, but Emmett, who’s shut the lights off the likes of Ricardo Lamas, Mirsad Bektic and Michael Johnson, has confidence in his hands too.
“I know Kattar has great striking. He has slick boxing. I think I have really good boxing, too,” Emmett said. “I’ve worked with my boxing coach, Joey Rodriguez, for seven, eight years, something like that. Him and I, we’ve been working year-round this whole time. I’ve gone to multiple boxing gyms, and a lot of the boxing coaches, they think I’m a boxer then Joey’s like, ‘No, he comes from a wrestling background.'”
One thing Emmett will try and be wary of is not getting lured into a firefight with Kattar, who’s been in a few wars as of late.
“He’s good everywhere,” Emmett said. “Some of his good attributes are he’s so damn tough, and he has that will to win and that heart, so he’s gonna keep coming forward. He’s always in the fight. He’s always dangerous. As far as me, I just have to stick to my game plan. I have to just be present in the moment and just stay calm.
“It is kind of tough when the fans are going crazy. I feel like I feed off the energy so it kind of ramps things up a little bit more, but yeah, I have to be strategic in my game plan. I have to keep moving and just kind of implementing everything that I’ve been doing in training and stuff like that, and I feel like if the best me shows up on June 18, there’s no one in the world that can beat me.”
First appeared on https://mmajunkie.usatoday.com/2022/06/ufc-news-josh-emmett-gas-tank-calvin-kattar