Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire is calling for a trilogy fight with AJ McKee.
As far as the Bellator featherweight division goes, there are two names at the top, champion Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire and former champion AJ McKee. It was been the two of these men fighting back and forth for the past year and now that they each have a win over other opponents, they are looking for each other again.
Back in July of 2021, McKee rose up and challenged Freire for the Bellator 145-pound strap. He defeated Freire to earn himself the title of world champion but because of his skill and reputation, Freire was given a rematch nine months later. In that rematch, Freire regained his belt but the rivalry between these two has continued to grow. McKee has been calling for another title shot since he lost to Freire and now seems like the right time for Bellator to set it up.
Both men competed this past weekend at Bellator 286. Freire defeated Ádám Borics by unanimous decision to retain his title and McKee beat Spike Carlyle in the c0-main event. Afterward, McKee was critical of Freire’s performance, calling him boring. Freire responded while a guest on MMA on Sirius XM.
“I want you to do the trilogy. I want to beat him again. That’s it. Lets’ do that,” he said. “My fight was boring. But I fought as a professional fighter and he was fighting like a street fighter, so how do you resolve that, brother? I can’t wait to beat up this motherf–ker.
The trash-talking and bad blood between these two make this a very interesting matchup for Bellator and the fans. They have fought twice already, as mentioned, with one win apiece. One more to settle the score is high on Freire’s list and he wants to get it done sooner rather than later.
“You know I don’t like to take a lot of months without a fight scheduled,” he said. “So maybe four months, five months I want to fight him like February, something like that.”
With both men interested in this third fight, it should be pretty easy for Bellator to set it up as long as schedules align and no injuries pop up.
