Patricio Pitbull Faces the Winner of Daniel Straus and Pat Curran for Bellator Featherweight Title

Patricio “Pitbull” Freire earned a shot at the Bellator featherweight title by defeating Justin Wilcox by technical knockout in the Bellator Season 9 Featherweight Tournament Final on Nov. 15, but he’s not getting the next title shot.

Instead, Bellator recently announced that champion Daniel Straus would face Pat Curran for the third time on March 14, and Freire would face the winner.

“I had to weigh and balance the power of the trilogy,” explained Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney during a media conference call on Monday. “I had to look at in their first fight, Pat knocked out Daniel, and in the second fight Daniel ground out the W. As I look at those two guys and I look at Pitbull, I see, in my mind, and we can debate this stuff until we’re blue in the face, but I see, in Straus and Curran, two of the top five or six featherweights on the face of the Earth.

“So to have the opportunity to settle this once and for all, to have a legitimate trilogy fight between one guy who has won by knockout and guy who, in typical Daniel fashion, ground out a victory. It’s a good opportunity. And I’ve got to weigh and balance the Pitbull issue as well,” added the Bellator CEO.

Freire will get his title shot. He simply has to wait to see whom he’ll face.

“Pitbull fought for us five times on Spike in 2013. He’s a world-class fighter as well,” said Rebney. “To be clear, Pitbull hasn’t lost his world title fight. Pitbull will get his world title fight. He’s just going to get it this spring against the winner of Straus vs. Curran when we finalize that trilogy.”

Like MMAWeekly.com on Facebook and Follow @MMAWeeklycom on Twitter.