Calvin Kattar details 15-week training camp for rescheduled UFC 249 fight
At UFC 249, rising featherweight contender Calvin Kattar will meet Jeremy Stephens in what is certainly going to be a high-stakes fight in the featherweight division. The fight was originally scheduled to take place at UFC 248 in March but then was moved to April 18 until the fights were then postponed and rescheduled for May 9, and just as his opponent has stayed the same, so has Kattar’s training camp.
During an interview with Luke Thomas on ‘The Luke Thomas Show’ on Sirius XM, Kattar detailed how he’s been going through multiple reschedulings as he prepares for the fight against Stephens.
🔊@CalvinKattar explains to @lthomasnews how he's been in training camp for 15 WEEKS with all the changes to the UFC schedule #TLTS 😲 pic.twitter.com/5z38nEnoTn
— MMA on SiriusXM (@MMAonSiriusXM) April 28, 2020
“We’ve trained accordingly to each date that they had proposed. The March date fell out kind of soon, we wanted to get to work early for a hopeful date following that which turned out to be April 18, and I think we all were prepared for that but we made the best of it, and here we are with May 9 ahead of us, and we’re ready to go, man. Business as usual, training doesn’t stop, whenever they set up that future date which happened to be next Saturday [May 9] then we will be ready.”
Given the numerous amount of times the fight against Stephens has been rescheduled, Kattar has continued to stay in training camp and revealed that it has been one long consistent camp throughout.
“S**t, it’s been like 15-16 weeks. From a programming standpoint, it’s tough but if you look at it from an optimistic standpoint, it’s like hey, normally fight camps are about 6 to 8 weeks and you need double that to prepare…It’s me vs him [Stephens] and he’s dealing wtih a lot of the similar circumstances that I am, and I’m going to prove to handle it better.”
Despite all the changes that he’s had to endure in the leadup to this fight, Kattar believes the extended wait has benefitted him and he’s more ready than he would’ve been before.
“We’re trying to gage that peak timeframe and I feel like we’ve done a great job listening to my body, understanding where we are in the camp and understanding how far out we are to the new competition date, and just making the necessary adjustments. Each time we’ve gotten further and further into the gameplan and things that we want to do, and I feel like I’m more ready now than I would have been for the previous two dates.”
With an incredibly long training camp coming to an end, Calvin Kattar will finally meet Jeremy Stephens inside the Octagon at UFC 249 on Saturday, May 9, in the first event for the UFC since March 14. The fight between Kattar and Stephens will likely have a lot at stake as both are ranked inside the top-10 in the featherweight division, looking to make a statement to become the next top contender.
