Bellator 60: Pat Curran Aiming for Joe Warren’s Belt

Bellator lightweight and featherweight tournament winner Pat Curran (16-4) has slowly risen out of his cousin Jeff’s shadows. Jeff Curran is a WEC, Pride, and UFC veteran.

Last year, the 24-year-old Pat captured his second tournament championship when he knocked out Marlon Sandro to become ranked as an elite featherweight, but it wasn’t all smooth sailing to get there.

Curran entered Bellator FC fighting a weight class above where he normally fights and felt out of his element.  Despite achieving great success as a lightweight and holding his own against then champion Eddie Alvarez, the Curran Martial Arts Academy pupil knew he could do better.

Now with three wins under his belt and back at his natural weight, 145 pounds, Curran feels right at home and has learned from all the mistakes he made in the past. He’s looking forward to meeting Joe Warren for the Bellator featherweight title Friday night at Bellator 60.

“When I was in the lightweight tournament I was coming up from featherweight,” Curran told MMAWeekly Radio.

“I just didn’t feel like I belonged in that weight class, but I was still able to win the tournament and I took on one of the best fighters in the world.  I learned a lot from the Eddie Alvarez fight that I need to fix my game plan and fix some mistakes that I was making and I found them in the last tournament.”

The loss to Alvarez was a learning lesson for Curran, and he learned that he needs more confidence in his abilities.  Even though his confidence in himself is high right now, he fully understands the work he needs to put in to continue to fight at a high level.

Last we saw of Bellator featherweight champion Joe Warren, he suffered a crushing defeat at the hands of Alexis Vila at bantamweight, but Curran doesn’t really hold any stock in that loss.  He knows that Warren fights with a lot of heart, and always comes forward, threatening his opponents with his Olympic caliber wrestling.

“He’s an extremely tough person. He’s a great wrestler, obviously, and he has a lot of heart.  Having a lot of heart as a fighter goes a long way and you can just see that in his past fights.  I feel like he’s going to be the best Joe Warren in this fight against me, especially coming off the loss, and since he’s got the heart of a champion and I’m expecting the best from him.”

Curran is hungry and confident on his path to the top, now that he’s back home at his natural weight.  Only one more stop to make and that’ll be against champion Joe Warren at Bellator 60.

Follow Andrew Gladstone at @gladstone1 on Twitter.
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