Bellator featherweight champion Patricio “Pitbull” Freire will look to become the second Bellator 145 champion to successfully make two title defenses when he meets Daniel Weichel in the co-main event of Bellator 138.
Pitbull (23-2) is coming off a submission victory in January against former champion Daniel Straus and was initially booked to face former WSOF champion Georgi Karakhanyan on this fight card.
However, Karakhanyan suffered a knee injury in training and was forced to pull out of the bout. With Karakhanyan out of the fight, Bellator turned to season ten tournament winner Daniel Weichel. With the change in opponent, did Pitbull have to make significant changes in his training camp?
“It didn’t change much. Both are tall guys with similar styles,” Pitbull told The MMA Report via a translator. “Weichel has a bigger reach, but I was already working with guys similar to him. The training was basically the same it would have been, we just did some minor adjustments.”
Nearly every time a fighter does an interview, they will state how his next fight is the most dangerous fight of their career. With that being said, why is Weichel dangerous and the biggest attributes he brings to the cage?
“He’s an experienced fighter, well rounded, but he’s not excellent anywhere,” Pitbull explained. “He compensates that with his knowledge and mixing it all up, but I’m better than him everywhere.”
With a victory tonight, Pitbull would tie former Bellator middleweight champion Alexander Shlemenko for the most wins in Bellator history. Obviously, Pitbull is extremely confident heading into his fight tonight against Weichel and he plans to be the fighter that will bring the violence to the cage.
“I’ll decide where the fight takes place, I’ll dictate the rhythm of the violence. I want to win this fight by knock out!”