At UFC Las Vegas 102, Youssef Zalal secured his fourth straight victory against Calvin Kattar. But Zalal spending the last round on his bike, avoiding engagement and playing for time, seems to have irked fans and analysts alike.
In the biggest fight of his career so far, Zalal (17-5-1 MMA, 7-3-1 UFC) took on Kattar (23-9 MMA, 7-7 UFC) and walked away with a unanimous decision win (28-28, 29-28, 29-28). He fought a smart, calculated fight. He was quicker, sharper, and more elusive, constantly switching directions and using slick head movement to frustrate Kattar.
The 28-year-old had the fight in his pocket going into the third and final round but he might as well have climbed up the octagon and sat there! His evasive and overly defensive style of fighting caught former bantamweight champion Henry Cejudo’s attention.
‘Triple C’ went on X to call him out sarcastically and said, “Welcome back, Usain Bolt #UFCVegas102.”
Welcome back, Usain Bolt #UFCVegas102 pic.twitter.com/B171tRiu1G
— Henry Cejudo (@HenryCejudo) February 16, 2025
Zalal has now cemented his place amongst the top featherweights in the division. But the UFC brass is known to hate these sorts of tactics.
UFC bossman had basically fired Mike Jackson for not showing enough intention to finish a fight. Back in 2018, at UFC 225, Jackson fought Phil Brooks aka WWE superstar, CM Punk.
Jackson looked leagues ahead of Punk but spent the entire fight showboating and made no attempts to get the job done for good. In the aftermath of the PPV, White had addressed the matter while accusing him of acting like a ‘goofball’ and said, “I don’t know what that guy did for a living before we gave him this shot, but whatever it was he needs to go back and do that again.”
A few years have passed since then, but it will be interesting to see where White stands on Zalal’s performance. Meanwhile, Zalal had some complaints of his own. Could they have played a role in his approach?
Zalal accuses Kattar of cheating
Zalal isn’t letting his abysmal performance in the third round take over the news. The featherweight fighter, also known as “The Moroccan Devil”, claims to have found something about Kattar really suspicious; something that is not strictly illegal but is often frowned upon.
According to him, Kattar was unusually slippery anytime they clinched, making it nearly impossible to get him down. Zalal, who went 0 for 8 on takedown attempts, addressed it further in the post-fight presser and said, “I feel like there’s Vaseline all over his legs. It was the slipperiest guy I’ve ever seen in my life.”
Youssef Zalal accused Calvin Kattar of greasing at #UFCVegas102. pic.twitter.com/ROIhHgv449
— MMA Junkie (@MMAJunkie) February 16, 2025
“This is the crazy part: We worked a lot of grappling, and I swear to God, it felt like there was Vaseline all over his legs,” Zalal reiterated as if to enforce his point. The Moroccan fighter claimed he was not one to make excuses but asserted nobody was that good at getting away, not even high-level grapplers like Jack Shore, who he trained with.
Could this be the reason why after he comfortably went 2-0 in the first two rounds, he just let Kattar have the third?
It doesn’t seem to matter to him at this point. With four straight wins, Zalal is ready to move on and start chasing even bigger names in the featherweight division.
