Patricio Pitbull welcomes Max Holloway Bellator fight ‘if he ever gets tired of making pennies in the UFC’

By Andrew Whitelaw - February 8, 2021

Patricio Pitbull is enjoying a truly prolific faze in his career. He holds both the lightweight and featherweight titles in Bellator, and is riding a six-fight winning streak and there is a strong argument for the 33-year-old being the best 145-er in the world.

Patricio Freire, Bellator, Josh Thomson

Pitbull is often asked about a move to the UFC, but it doesn’t look like that will happen anytime soon. Instead, the Brazilian suggests that some of his counterparts would be better off coming over to join him in Bellator, namely, Max Holloway.

“(The future) belongs to God,” Freire told Nolan King at MMA Junkie. “We’ll see what’s next. Maybe Max Holloway gets tired of making pennies in the UFC and comes to Bellator so we can make a huge stadium show in Hawaii. We could see a change from the top guys from the UFC (coming) to Bellator.

“If they don’t think there is money here, that’s a lie. Bellator would be willing to pay for those who deserve it. We will see what the future reserves – where I’ll be at, where they’ll be at, and what Bellator will be willing to do. But I don’t have any worries. I know it’s going to do something good.”

Pitbull has taken to twitter more than once to throw shade at Holloway’s record breaking win over Calvin Kattar at UFC Fight Island 7, and wrote the following caption over a clip of his knockout win against Michael Chandler, 

447 connected strikes in a fight might be nice and all, but I rather just knock people out, really. Even if I didn’t, they can’t take that many of my punches anyway.”

https://twitter.com/PatricioPitbull/status/1351738008983252992

Holloway is not the only former or current UFC champion that Pitbull has called out. Both he and Bellator CEO, Scott Coker have suggested that a fight with UFC champion, Alex Volkanovski would be over before the end of the first round. Despite his interest in fighting the biggest names in the UFC, Pitbull says that any kind of super-fight would have to be part of a unique, cross-promotion with Bellator.

“I definitely want to have a shot at those guys – especially the ones that people say I can’t beat or that would beat me easily,” he said. “It’s not that the UFC interests me most, actually. I’d like to create history, something new in the sport – to create a big cross-promotion, like in boxing (where) you have the champions sometimes fighting each other. That’s what we’re missing in MMA right now. I’d like to be the guy to start that.”

Will we ever see Pitbull take on the likes of Max Holloway or Alex Volkanovski?


Topics:

Bellator Max Holloway MMA News Patricio "Pitbull" Freire UFC