Athletes
BRAD KATONA: ADDRESSING THE BOTTLENECK
Bantamweight Reflects On Takeaways From A Tough Loss Ahead Of Return To Action On Saturday Night in Louisville
Coming off another competitive fight where the final verdict didn’t fall in his favor, Brad Katona brought a five-year-old’s mentality into his return to the gym, pulling apart the pieces of his game that he wanted to improve and repeatedly asking “why” until he and his coaches had distilled the problem down to its essence.
“We blew his engine,” Katona began, reflecting on his January clash with Garrett Armfield where he seized control of the contest in the final round, only to land on the wrong side of a unanimous decision result that halted his five-fight winning streak. “He blew out in that third round, but we need that earlier, so how do we make that happen earlier? Obviously, put on a faster pace from the beginning, but how do you do that?
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“You kind of act like the five-year-old and ask, ‘Why? Why? Why?’ Eventually, we came down to if I feel safe and secure with my defensive work, then I’ll go. If I’m not going, it’s probably because of hesitation about scoring — a jab landing and now I need to make that back.
“You hear people say ‘point fighting’ and I think that’s dismissing it a little bit because we’ve seen Armfield stop many guys, so he had the power,” continued the analytical and introspective Canadian, who takes on Jesse Butler on the preliminary portion of Saturday’s fight card from the KFC Yum! Center in Louisville. “For me, I think I was respecting it a bit too much and I didn’t have the skills to hold my ground.
“You saw in the fight that he could sneeze and I would take a backwards step. Why are we doing that? We need to be able to close the range. It’s not like the shots were hurting me — I just lacked the ability.”
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For Katona, who holds a degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Manitoba, the process of identifying the flaw in his design, seeking out a solution, and working to implement that fix not only fits with the way he thinks, but also brings an added level of excitement to this weekend’s festivities.
“What’s really exciting about this is that there have been a couple fights where there has been a bottleneck in my game, holding me back,” he said. “I feel like I have all these abilities and I’m not able to show them to the full extent, so when you address a bottleneck, you get a big jump in performance, and that’s what’s exciting here is we’re addressing that bottleneck, amongst other things.”
One of those “other things” that he’s been addressing since that UFC 297 clash with Armfield is an understanding and acceptance that whatever happens inside the Octagon and the physical act of fighting itself isn’t a big deal.
While that may sound like a strange thing for a professional mixed martial artist to be articulating more than a dozen fights into their career, hearing the way Katona explains it — with the numerous caveats and spoken parenthetical notes sprinkled in along the way — makes it all make sense.
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“I guess to be more specific and a little more clear: the act of fighting, the 15 minutes — well, 17 minutes — itself (isn’t a big deal),” began the 32-year-old two-time Ultimate Fighter winner. "Getting hit isn’t a big deal. Now that I’m saying that, who knows, maybe on Saturday I get hit with a shot and that’s it, but the act of fighting — we’re nervous, there’s some fear, there’s the pain, but let’s just bring that down a little bit.
“I think I have the nerves in check, but even just viewing it as ‘my body will take care of it;’ it’s not going to be as bad (as I think). I’ve been hit with shots where your ears ring, I’ve been hit with shots where nothing happens, and everything in between, so it’s just not a big deal; maybe just some superficial damage.
“In the Timur (Valiev) fight,” he continued, citing his second round matchup from his most recent appearance on The Ultimate Fighter, “there’s a head clash, blood running down my body, and I’m going, ‘This is fine,’ like the dog in flames (meme). ‘This is fine.’
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“I think it’s a little of that approach — just realizing that getting hit isn’t the end of the world, so hold your damn ground, keep the pressure on, and have them blow out earlier than we have.”
Having seemingly identified an area where he could improve and spent the last several months working to do just that has Katona excited about Saturday’s return against Butler, because that will be the true test of what he’s been working on.
“It’s exciting in some ways, but like everything: we’ll see,” he said with a broad smile. “How I feel is that we have a new prototype, we’ve been working on it, we’ve flown it a few times, but, at the end of the day, you’ve gotta fly it (for real).
“At the end of the day, we’re gonna see if that was the right path. I think it is. What I’m seeing in sparring, what I’m seeing in the gym — and that’s the place where we can replicate it the closest to Saturday night — it’s trending well, but you never know. I’m saying that just completely honestly.
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“I’m very confident, I know I’m a favorite, I know all that, but I have to do it, and nothing is certain,” he added. “He could be better than we expect. He could be as good as we’re expecting and have a moment. I still need to do it, and there is only one way of doing it and that’s wait until Saturday and fly the damn thing.”
Should this weekend’s “official launch” in Louisville go as well as the "test flights” Katona has been conducting back in the gym in Dublin, he admits that the feeling is going to be freeing, and obviously feel significantly better than how he felt exiting the Octagon in Toronto earlier this year.
But even with a victory over Butler, he admitted that his mindset — that five-year-old’s approach — is likely to stay the same.
“After a loss, you’re carrying it — you’re carrying that pressure and it’s just unpleasant,” Katona began, laughing at the simple truth. “It sounds so bad, but it makes everything less good.
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“Getting that win, I think, if I’m being completely honest, I’ll be in a slightly better mood, but it will be very similar to last fight where I go, ‘Okay, how do we get better from here?’ because I know where I want to get to.
“We said it’s the most stacked division in the UFC, so we have to get to work right away,” he added. “We have to be better. We can’t be struggling against these guys if we want to achieve what we want to achieve, so it’s going to be that similar mindset, but hopefully a little more pleasant.”
UFC Fight Night: Cannonier vs Imavov took place live from KFC Yum! Center in Louisville, Kentucky on June 8, 2024. See the final Prelims & Main Card Results, Official Scorecards and Who Won Bonuses - and relive the action on UFC Fight Pass!