‘Pitbull’ Freire won't watch Shamrock vs. Slice: 'I feel sorry for them – they’re old'

KANSAS CITY — MMA coach and ersatz Portugese translator Eric Albarracin smiled sheepishly at a Bellator PR rep as his charge, featherweight champ Patricio Freire, let loose a verbal grenade after an open workout in support of Friday’s Bellator 138.

“Don’t talk to him while he’s cutting weight,” Albarracin offered, leaving unsaid the real point – or this happens. Freire was in a mood, and it probably wasn’t a great idea to put him in front of tape recorders.

What PR professional, after all, would want to hear the champ’s assessment of the event’s headliner, the guilty pleasure featuring Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and Ken Shamrock?

“I feel sorry for them – they’re old,” Freire (23-2 MMA, 11-2 BMMA) told MMAjunkie, repeating feelings he’s expressed multiple times recently. “I don’t want to see an old guy get hurt in the ring. That doesn’t look good. This isn’t a joke, fighting in a cage.”

Albarracin had done his the best to make the Bellator champ feel special during the workout, placing in front of him a once elusive title belt on the mat in front of reporters. It was a hard-won strap, one that came to rest around his waist this past September with a revenge win over ex-champ Pat Curran and stayed put in January with a fourth-round sub of ex-champ Daniel Straus.

The coach tried put on funny glasses and gloved his hand with a plastic head for the Brazilian champ to punch and kick, holding the piece high because his opponent Friday, injury replacement Daniel Weichel (35-8 MMA, 4-0 BMMA), is five inches taller.

“And still!” Albaraccin exclaimed as Freire wrapped a round, adding “We’re going to show them why we should have been on the poster!”

Although conveyed with the same enthusiasm and confidence, there was more subtext. But you could see this message. Sitting just a few feet away was a banner for the event, which takes place at St. Louis’ Scottrade Center. Freire was nowhere to be seen. A main-card bout between ex-lightweight champ Michael Chandler and Derek Campos sat under the craggy visages of Slice and Shamrock.

Before Freire could voice his feelings on the artwork, the PR rep stepped in. Freire is, he said, on event posters. Unfortunately, among several created for Bellator 138, this one made it to the workout.

Freire, in the throes of hunger and controlled starvation, wasn’t feeling magnanimous toward the promotion and its intentions – even though he understood them.

“I’ve watched ‘Kimbo when I was a kid fighting on YouTube, and Ken Shamrock is a legend, and do think it brings more money to the sport; it does bring casual fans,” he said. “But I was created in Bellator, and I’m the winningest fighter in Bellator, and I need to be treated as such.

“Look at when Frankie Edgar fought B.J. Penn (at UFC 118) – they were the main event and Randy Couture vs. James Toney, who were a lot older and a lot more famous, were not the main event. And Bethe Correia, who I grabbed by the hand and put her in the gym for the first time she’s ever stepped on an MMA mat, is now fighting for a title two years later on the same card as legends like (Antonio Rodrigo and Antonio Rogerio) Nogueira and (Mauricio) ‘Shogun’ Rua. These guys are being her because … there’s a championship fight on the card. Because how are you going to put a world champion in the co-main event? I’m the only world champion on the card. It doesn’t make sense.”

Bellator CEO Scott Coker doesn’t hide the strategy behind the main event. The idea behind putting Slice and Shamrock, whose collective age is eight years shy of one century, is to draw in casual fans with a sideshow and then give them the real attraction – world-class MMA fighters like him, Straus and Chandler.

Shamrock might be the same age as Ron Van Clief was for his one-and-done against Royce Gracie at UFC 4. Shamrock and Slice might’ve been dormant in MMA for in five years. But they are stars, and fans watch stars.

Bellator needs as many of those as it can get, whether overused or undervalued, in a post-tournament world. Until Coker builds the next generation, he needs names to draw ratings for the promotion’s longtime TV partner, Spike TV, whose corporate parent Viacom owns a substantial stake in Bellator.

You can’t tell that to Freire, though. He might be fighting in front of the biggest audience of his career – he requested to be on this card, the PR rep later tells me – and still the message he interprets is that he’s been snubbed. It’s clear without translation.

So, he said, he’s going to fight to earn his respect. He’s going to try to meet with Coker. And, he said, he’s going to enjoy punching somebody, in this case Weichel.

But he will not be watching Shamrock vs. Slice, he said. He is sitting out in protest.

“I came because I’ve got a contract, but I shouldn’t be here if I’m not the main event,” Freire said. “I’m sorry, I like ‘Kimbo,” and I like Ken, but when I win my title, I’m going home.”

For more on Bellator 138, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.