Steve Garcia OK losing his finishing streak in the name of big-picture UFC ascension
Steve Garcia kept a streak this past Saturday, but lost one, too.
When his MMA timeline gets long enough, though, the 33-year-old featherweight suspects his unanimous decision win over Calvin Kattar at UFC on ESPN 70 in Nashville will have a pin in it as a key moment on his resume.
Garcia (18-5 MMA, 7-2 UFC) put on a dominant and well-rounded standup display in his win over Calvin Kattar (23-10 MMA, 7-8 UFC). And though Kattar is in the midst of a hefty slump – five straight losses after Garcia was done with him, and six setbacks in his past seven – he's long been considered a stiff test in the division.
Garcia had to go the distance to get his hand raised for the first time since 2018 – before he was in the UFC. Going into the Kattar fight, in which he was nearly a 2-1 favorite, he had five straight finishes. But with that streak snapped, he thinks he proved he's got more than just knockout power.
"I've been wanting a fight like this for a while," Garcia told MMA Junkie Radio. "I thought I was going to get it with Edson (Barboza) in February (before Barboza pulled out), but that's OK. Timing's everything. We got Kattar, and Kattar's a phenomenal striker. I think I was the better boxer, though.
"I think everyone wants to set the bar high. That's what I was trying to do: I was trying to knock out Kattar. … That's just how I fight. I always go for the KO. But I get a lot of backlash because everyone thinks I'm reckless or I don't know how to fight properly. … But I just knew with a veteran like Kattar, you go with someone like that who's been in the game for such a long time, who's knocked out people, such a vet – you can tell the difference in there. He's always dangerous."
In his five knockouts leading into the fight with Kattar, Garcia had three post-fight bonuses in wins over Chase Hooper, Seung Woo Choi and Kyle Nelson. And those are great.
But at his gym, Jackson-Wink MMA in Albuquerque, N.M., he's being told to not obsess and tie emotion to wanting to finish fights. It's a message he's trying to take to heart.
With six straight wins, and increasing levels of opponent quality on paper, Garcia knows he's creeping up on title contention – but he's not trying to insert his name into the conversation ahead of schedule. That's why a win over Kattar was so important, and despite no knockout, it showed, he thinks, that he can compete with the elite at 145 pounds.
"I came into this sport to be at the top," Garcia said. "I didn't really boast about any of my accomplishments leading up to any of this. … You guys understand how deep the 145 bracket is. To even have that conversation about a main event or pushing toward a title shot, it just seemed so far out of reality that I wasn't going to stumble over all that conversation and even make that a situation until there's actually some substance behind that.
"I wanted to make sure we got to this position before we could even have this legitimate conversation. The five-rounders are a very high possibility now. I believe I can compete with anybody at the top."
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