'Pitbull' Freire canceled Bellator title fight before he won it
On Sep. 5 Patricio "Pitbull" Freire won a unanimous decision over then-featherweight Bellator champion Pat Curran to win his first major title. Just weeks before, however, the Brazilian actually hurt himself and pulled out of the fight.
Freire injured his knee joint during a particularly strenuous Bellator photo shoot (hint to photographers of fighters who are heading into competition - don't have them throw over two dozen flying knees just because it looks cool) and told the promotion he would be unable to rematch Curran."I actually canceled the fight a couple weeks before the event, I said I couldn’t do it," he revealed in an interview with Guilherme Cruz.
"I had the worst camp of my life. I was so injured I couldn’t throw a kick, and then I injured my shoulder and I couldn’t throw a punch, too. I usually train twice a day, and I was barely training once a day. I had fever every time I stopped training. It was terrible.
"I was in New York for a Bellator photo shoot and they asked me to throw some flying knees, but I was landing on the concrete. I did it 30 times, and ended up injuring my meniscus ... I couldn’t train. I went to the doctor and he said I couldn’t fight. Bellator took me to another doctor and he said the same thing, so I canceled the fight. I forgot about my diet, forgot about the fight."
Freire says that Curran must have known he was injured because Bellator tried to get the Team Takedown member a new challenger after "Pitbull" pulled out, initially. Pressure from Bellator and his own manager convinced Freire to go back into the fight with Curran, now injured.
"Three days after I pulled out of the fight, Bellator called me again asking me if I was good to fight. I said I was still recovering, so they gave me a week to think," he said. "They called me again on Aug. 29, a week before the fight. My manager Jorge Guimaraes told me ‘man, let’s do this, you are ready. Every fighter has injuries. Get some rest, make weight, and let’s do this.’ I sparred, did five rounds, so I decided to take the fight."
The fighter says he'll only need rehab, and no surgery, to repair the injured meniscus in one of his knees. However, he says he may need to undergo surgery to repair his nose.
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