When Bellator made it’s live debut on Spike TV, the first fight was a title fight as featherweight champion Pat Curran won a close and what some people have termed as a controversial split decision victory over Patricio Pitbull.
On Friday night, the two fighters will face each for a second time as they will meet in the main event of Bellator 123 at the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut on Spike TV.
When Pitbull (21-2) steps into the Bellator cage on Friday night, it will have been 596 days since he lost to current at Bellator 85. It was the last time he was defeated and was his second career defeat. Since that fight, he has won four fights in a row but admitted during an interview on “The MMA Report Live” that the fight weighed heavy on his mind several months.
“Since the fight was over in January of 2013, I was waking every night for three to four months feeling that I was still in the fight,” Pitbull said. “It has been a process to get that out of my head and, I feel like now it’s a new process for me, and a new way of thinking that I have to go into this fight with no emotions.”
Following the first fight with Curran, Pitbull felt he should have been granted an immediate rematch with Curran. That did not take place and Curran has been in three title fights since their first meeting. While he had to wait for this title opportunity, he admits there was frustration with the process but knew the title shot would come.
“Any fighter in my position would have become frustrated and in the mean time, I have had four fights,” he said. “One fight and three other in the tournament. I had three knockouts and one fight that I dominated the entire fight. I knew once they gave Curran the rematch, I would be next so there was frustration but I knew it was coming.”
Since the end of July, Pitbull and been training in California with his brother, Patricky and others to prepare for his rematch with Curran. Fighters evolve as they get more experience in the sport and one of the ways Patricio has grown is getting his mind away from the sport when he is not training.
“I am the kind of guy that has fun training and during training, I like to use up my energy in training but I have been trying to take it easy as much as I can as well,” he said. “Going to the movies with my wife, going to the beach, and trying to clear my mind. Focus on my training when I need too and not when I am not training.”
One of the story lines for this fight is the rivalry between these two featherweight fighters. Over the past couple of months, they have exchanged heated words on Twitter. In one exchange, Curran told Pitbull to [expletive] off following an interview Pitbull gave to a reporter. While trash talking is part of promoting a fight, there is one thing that Curran said to him on social media that he did not appreciate.
“There was one thing that Curran said that I think was a very unhappy saying which he said I was a cry baby and if he was fighting for the title, it was because he deserved it. He was completely dominated by [Daniel] Straus and I did not feel like he deserved it.”
Currently, Pitbull is a very small underdog in this fight as he is +100 in the betting odds, while Curran is -140. For some fighters, that may bother them but not for Pitbull. For him, it does not matter what people think as he has faith in himself that he knows that he will walk away with the title on Friday night. Curran recently stated that he sees himself getting a stoppage victory in some way and Pitbull feels he will stop Curran as well.
“In some way, I imagine him getting knocked out.”