Bellator 297: Patricio 'Pitbull' Freire fights Sergio Pettis with an eye on the history books
Patricio "Pitbull" Freire stands on the precipice of MMA history as he enters his fight Saturday at Bellator 297 against bantamweight champion Sergio Pettis at the Wintrust Arena in Chicago, Illinois. Freire is bidding to become the first fighter from a major MMA promotion to win titles in three weight classes.
Freire is the reigning Bellator featherweight champion, his third stint as such. He added a second belt when he knocked out Michael Chandler in one minute, one second, at Bellator 221 on May 11, 2019, to win its lightweight title.
On Friday, he'll drop down in an attempt to take the bantamweight title from Pettis, a feat that would clearly make him the Bellator GOAT. Freire is a -180 favorite at BetMGM, with Pettis at +150.
Freire sneers when asked if he's doing it for money and said he's not making a cent more than if he were just making another featherweight title defense. He's fought with a chip on his shoulder much of his career and believes he hasn't gotten the recognition due to him for his many achievements. He's 35-5 with 23 finishes and has fought for a Bellator world championship 15 times, winning 12. Despite that, he's not in the current pound-for-pound Top 10 as judged by Yahoo Sports, ESPN or MMA Fighting.
He hasn't gotten the accolades that fighters like his friend and occasional coach, Henry Cejudo, have received. It gnaws at him, but he believes history will look at him more kindly.
"We see many fighters being talked about as being on the all-time greats list," Freire told Yahoo Sports. "We have many legends arriving all the time in this young sport. One thing no one has accomplished yet is winning titles in three different divisions in a major organization. After I do this, 100 years from now when people look back on MMA history, my name will be right there at the top as the first one to do it. That was the main motivation for me."
He decided to go for it now because Bellator was putting together a bantamweight grand prix. But that made it difficult because cutting weight is a huge part of the title fight process. Freire won his featherweight belt first, won the lightweight belt and then dropped back down to featherweight.
This will be his first time since joining Bellator in 2010 that he's fought at 135 pounds. Making weight is a brutal task for most fighters, who often move up in weight after a period of time rather than suffering to sweat off the pounds needed to make a lower class.
He hasn't done a test cut yet but said he had a comparison done by a physiologist who determined he could make it safely.
"We have this physiologist on my team and we compared my data with the data of other bantamweights on our team," he said. " ... I was actually looking more like a bantamweight on the data than our team's bantamweights. We realized we didn't need to do a practice weight cut and everything is proceeding very smoothly for a perfect weight cut."
He called Pettis "the most technical opponent I have faced," and conceded it wouldn't be easy to defeat him.
He longs to fight the best in the world, and mentioned featherweight champion Alex Volkanovski of the UFC, Demetrious Johnson of ONE and Brendan Loughnane of the PFL as opponents he'd like to meet in the future.
He said Cejudo told him he'd beat UFC bantamweight champion Aljamain Sterling "very easily," and said he'd be eager to face Sterling, as well.
A cross-promotion fight is uncommon in MMA, unlike in boxing where promotional boundaries are open. The UFC, the leading promoter in the sport, has zero interest in that.
Freire understands it's unlikely but can't for the life of him figure out why not.
"It would benefit this sport so much and stop all the 'what ifs' if the champions of this sport all got together and fought each other," Freire said. "As fighters, we believe we're the best and can beat anyone. Of course, we would want to prove that to the world. I want to fight all of these guys, but I can only meet who is put in front of me."
If he pulls off the win over Pettis, it should grab the attention of the MMA world. There are many who believe the UFC is MMA and that MMA begins and ends with the UFC, but that's not the case. And Freire is heartened by the fact that down the road, he'll be looked upon favorably by historians.
"I have tried my entire career to fight the best and to prove I'm the best," he said. "When we're all gone and no one can [spin], the records are going to be there for everyone to see. And I think people then will understand what I accomplished in this business."
