Patricio Pitbull planning to chase ‘legend’ status by dropping to bantamweight after two more title defenses
Patricio Pitbull is looking to become a three-weight world champion.
Pitbull is the current Bellator featherweight champion and the former Bellator lightweight champ – which is a title he vacated so his brother could fight for it. Although he’s set to defend his 145lbs strap on Saturday against Adam Borics, and after that, he says he will face Aaron Pico and then will drop down to 135lbs.
“My intention is to clean the division out one more time,” Pitbull said to MMAFighting. “I’m already announcing that my next challenger, if God allows and I defend the title against Adam Borics, will be Aaron Pico. I think he’s doing well in the division. I want to defend the title twice — I won’t vacate it, I’ll keep my title, but I’ll try a shot at the one below. I’ll try to be double champion one more time, this time going down instead of up.”
Pitbull has talked about dropping down to bantamweight in the past and it’s something he says Bellator is interested in.
However, a big concern would be if Patricio Pitbull could make the weight which he says he would be able to do. He says he isn’t the biggest featherweight and hopes he could get an immediate title shot and become a champion in three different weight classes in Bellator.
“I already told [Bellator] internally and they liked the idea,” Pitbull said. “When I talked to them before, they had the [bantamweight] grand prix going on and I really couldn’t be on it. I’m short but I’m very compact. My legs are very strong, my upper body is thick, the neck … I would need proper work for a fight [at 135] but not a grand prix, where I would have to make weight several times one after the other. But for a title fight, to take the legend step, I think it works. I’m not considering the idea of staying at bantamweight. Featherweight is my division; it works really well for me. I don’t suffer at 155 and I stay strong and eat well, but 145 is my division. Knowing that my opponents come from 185 or even 195, that’s where I do better. And bantamweight is out of the question. This is child’s weight, girly weight [laughs], it doesn’t work for me. I tried to stay at this division, but it doesn’t work. I only fought there in the beginning of my career.”
Patricio Pitbull is currently 33-5 as a pro and coming off a decision win over AJ McKee to reclaim his featherweight strap.
