'Inflation isn't getting out of the octagon': Fed official turns to MMA to talk economy

Battling the throes of inflation can apparently feel like a full-contact sport.

That was the message from Fed governor Christopher Waller during a speech Monday, where he compared the more than two-year fight against inflation to a tiring bout of sparring in a mixed martial arts cage.

"I feel like an MMA fighter who keeps getting inflation in a choke hold, waiting for it to tap out yet it keeps slipping out of my grasp at the last minute," Waller said in remarks at an economics conference, as reported by Axios. "But let me assure you that submission is inevitable — inflation isn't getting out of the octagon," he added, according to the publication.

Waller’s metaphoric comments come as two crucial inflation reports for October – the Consumer Price Index and the Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index – dealt further proof that inflation was no longer on a continuous downward trend as in months past, Axios noted.

ALSO READ: Will Trump back the FBI’s battle against domestic extremists? He won’t say.

"After making a lot of progress over the past year and a half, the recent data indicate that progress may be stalling," Waller said according to the report. But that could just be a temporary snag.

He added that inflation lying stagnant above the Fed’s 2% target was “a risk but not a certainty,” and pointed to similar inflation concerns last year that turned out to be temporary.

Waller also said he is in favor of the Fed cutting rates at its Dec. 17-18 meeting. But he noted that the decision primarily depends on "whether data that we will receive before then surprises to the upside and alters my forecast for the path of inflation," according to Axios.

“Markets expect the same; Fed funds futures pointed to about a 69% chance of a rate cut late Tuesday morning, per the CME's FedWatch tool,” the publication noted.