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One of the vital dominant champions in Bellator historical past will get one other likelihood to check himself towards fellow titleholders after the corporate was purchased out by PFL.
As PFL appears to soak up many fighters to its roster whereas holding Bellator working as a world collection, featherweight nice Patricio Pitbull eyes PFL’s “mega-event” deliberate for 2024, the place champions from each organizations will collide within the cage.
Pitbull reacted to the information on MMA Preventing’s Trocação Franca podcast, celebrating the actual fact he’ll get to face one other titleholder. Pitbull beat then-RIZIN featherweight champion Kleber Koike in Japan in 2022, and appears ahead to competing towards the winner of Friday’s Gabriel Braga vs. Jesus Pinedo bout, which decides 2023’s PFL featherweight champion.
“For me, it is sensible to do legendary fights, historic fights, like this one towards the PFL champion, whoever that’s,” Pitbull mentioned. “Champion vs. champion. To me, it makes extra sense to do fights of that magnitude [instead of entering the PFL season]. However after I’m in a GP, if I’ve the belt, I deal with each battle as a title protection.”
Pitbull mentioned he’s open to competing within the PFL season regardless that he prefers particular one-offs, and admits he completely hates the PFL level system that qualifies athletes to the playoffs. As an alternative, he prefers conventional MMA tournaments like those performed underneath the Bellator banner. Pitbull mentioned that whether or not he’s in a match or not gained’t “change a factor for me” financially, nonetheless, since “my purse would be the identical.”
Pitbull mentioned he hopes Braga wins Friday, establishing a conflict between mates in 2024. Gabriel is the son of Diego Braga, an MMA fighter and coach who labored with Pitbull again when the Bellator star skilled at Workforce Nogueira in Rio de Janeiro.
“I’ve identified Gabriel since he was a child, he’s the son of an incredible buddy of mine, however we’re professionals,” Pitbull mentioned. “If I’ve to battle a Brazilian, we’ll placed on a battle that can go down in historical past. I believe Diego informed me as soon as that [Gabriel] is my fan. I’ve seen him hitting pads as a child within the gymnasium and he was powerful already, so I’m positive it will be an incredible battle. I welcome the chance and hope he wins and turns into PFL champion.”
When Bellator put Pitbull’s skills to make use of towards RIZIN athletes in Japan in 2022, the evening Pitbull beat Koike, it was a clear 5-0 sweep for the American promotion. Pitbull foresees one other dominant rating when Bellator titleholders finally meet PFL champions.
“I don’t see Bellator fighters being inferior to PFL athletes,” Pitbull mentioned. “With all due respect to PFL guys, they’re tremendous powerful fighters. That’s all in principle, we’ve to battle to see who’s who, however in my imaginative and prescient, in principle, most Bellator fighters are higher than PFL fighters. However we’re right here to battle, brother.”
As for the entire panorama of the game, Pitbull laments that having PFL and Bellator merge means one much less possibility available in the market for fighters in search of main MMA offers, however celebrates that they’re one step nearer to the UFC when it comes to top-ranked expertise on the identical roster.
“They’ve all the pieces of their fingers to make it develop increasingly more,” Pitbull mentioned. “On the media aspect we’ve YouTubers Jake Paul and Logan Paul, who’re crucial, and we’ve [Francis] Ngannou scoring one for us fighters and MMA followers towards one of the best boxer on this planet at present. Now we have all the pieces to go head-to-head with the UFC. Step one was taken with the acquisition, and now we wait.”
“Having mentioned all that, it gained’t be simple,” he added. “The UFC may be very conventional, an older group that has taken the precise steps on the proper time. Let’s see what occurs. I’m curious.”
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