On Saturday night UFC President Dana White claimed he didn’t know enough about Bellator two-weight champion Patricio Freire to comment on him, which has prompted a fiery response from ‘Pitbull’.
“Hi Dana White, I’m the one who destroyed steroids machine Mike Chandler, whom you said deserves a talk, in 61 seconds,” Freire wrote to the UFC president on Twitter. “If you send some of your top fighters to Bellator I can do the same to them too. Let’s bet like you did with Pride.
“Any way works fine for me. I’m sure if Dana White and the UFC are open to it Bellator will let me go there fight their champions. I will even personally bet 1 million dollars with White that I win. How does that sound for an incentive?”
Freire has been one of the most recognisable fighters in Bellator’s for much of it’s existence, compiling an impressive 18-4 record along the way, and as he indicates in his message, Michael Chandler is one of his victims, along with others like Emmanuel Sanchez, Daniel Strauss, Pat Curran, Diego Nunes and Wilson Reis.
The 33-year-old is also enjoying the most successful spell of his career, as he currently holds the Bellator featherweight title for the second time in his career, while also simultaneously having won the lightweight belt thanks to a win over the aforementioned Chandler.
Freire has met a high-profile ex-UFC fighter before when he was lined up as Ben Henderson’s second opponent for the Bellator promotion back in 2016, but on that occasion he came off second-best, losing out by TKO in the second round.
Freire is a talented fighter and a fun one to watch, but betting $1 million that he could beat the likes of Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje and Dustin Poirier at lightweight or Alex Volkanovski and Max Holloway at featherweight seems like a very risky proposition indeed.
