Patricio “Pitbull” Freire retained the Bellator featherweight title last Friday night in St. Louis, Missouri as he stopped Daniel Weichel by knockout in the second round.
The talk of the fight between Pitbull and Weichel is what happened at the end of the first round when Weichel landed a flurry of strikes. Pitbull was able to make it to the end of the round and would finish Weichel in the opening minute of the second round.
“I made a huge mistake at the last five seconds of the first round and I paid for it, it also almost cost me my title,” Pitbull said in a press release sent out by his management team. “I made a feint and didn’t proceed with what I had thought. I also left my hands low, he saw that and capitalized. I didn’t see that punch but it landed straight at my chin. The punch that knocks you out is the punch you don’t see. I took other shots and even a huge knee and another punch later, but I was still there.”
“Weichel hits very hard and is very good with the timing of his attacks. Kudos to him, but that doesn’t make what happend the four minutes and fifty five seconds before change. It was a competitive fight in which I had the upper hand. We were fighting for five rounds, the first one was going exactly like me and my team wanted it to go. It was a feeling out proccess, getting the timing and everything I needed to know about him.”
“At the second round he came at me strong, but I was blocking and looking at everything. There are some camera angles that will show you that as I’ve pointed out to some people while discussing the fight. You can even see I set up the left hook once and returned before firing it. There was no luck involved, everyone knows how dangerous my left hook is and how well I use and time it. I doubt there’s anyone with a stronger punch than me at the weight class. My left hook is the H-bomb of the Featherweight division.”
“I finished a very durable guy at 32 seconds of round 2 of a five rounds fight. It was his first real KO loss since 2007 and that was versus Paul Daley at Welterweight. His last TKO loss was more than 5 years ago at Lightweight and the other times he was TKO’ed were at Welterweight or above. He was 12-1 since his last TKO. Go look at the data and at the real facts. I’m a threat to anyone, at any time I can turn the tide of a fight be it with my striking or my jiu jitsu.”
The victory over Weichel was the seventh straight win for Pitbull and he has the most wins in Bellator history with twelve. Following the win over Weichel, people in the mixed martial arts community have debated on Pitbull’s place in the featherweight division. He has heard all of this and in his mind, he is at the top.
“I’m at the top. You can rank [Jose] Aldo and no one else ahead of me right now. But not for long. I’m positive I’d beat Aldo,” Pitbull stated. “Some of the guys people say would beat me I just shake my head and ask myself if they’re serious. Look, I have 26 fights, should be 26-0. I have been dominant in 90% of those. I haven’t been fighting scrubs. Ever since I began I fought the toughest guys that they could put in front of me. Now because of my last two fights people want to write me off? Fights that I won, by the way.”
“It’s not over until the fat lady sings. An unbreakable mind is what makes great fighters. No one can break me. The only way to stop me is to completely finish me, as long as I can move my legs and my hands I’ll be fighting and looking for a way to win. There are so many guys who lose fights because they get rocked and in their mind they just want to survive. We’ve seen some champions take one punch and let their opponents take over the fight and their belts. I’m not like that. And being like me is something rare these days.”