Patricio Freire scored a rapid, savage, first-round KO win, and is fast becoming the greatest Bellator MMA fighter in history
- Patricio Freire scored a rapid, savage, first-round knockout win Thursday.
- Freire defeated Bellator 252 opponent Pedro Carvalho via first-round knockout, advancing to the next round of the Bellator featherweight Grand Prix.
- The 33-year-old Brazilian is a two-weight champion at Bellator MMA, has a decade's worth of consistency within the company behind him, and has made a case that he is the best fighter in Bellator history.
- Boss Scott Coker agrees with that assessment. "We are lucky to have him. He's been a great fighter for us, a great ambassador."
Patricio Freire scored a rapid, savage, first-round knockout win Thursday, and is fast becoming the greatest Bellator MMA fighter in history — if he's not there already.
Freire entered the behind-closed-doors Bellator 252 event at the Mohegan Sun Casino, Uncasville, Connecticut as a two-weight champion, and left the cage having advanced to the next round of the Bellator featherweight Grand Prix.
Midway through the first round, after defending himself from a knee strike, a two-punch combination, and a kick, Freire took a few steps to rediscover his range, pawed with some distance-finding jabs, and then hurled a right-hand bomb at Pedro Carvalho's face.
The shot was such a thudding whack that Carvalho had to take seven steps back before he had rebalanced.
But Freire had no intention of letting him off and landed a left hook on his opponent's jaw.
Down went Carvalho and the referee dived onto his body, waving the bout off before the champion could even think about hitting him with afters.
Watch the walk-off knockout right here:
Considering Freire's status as the Bellator champion at featherweight and lightweight, his pound-for-pound ranking in all mixed martial arts, and a decade's consistency of work which includes a victory over the new UFC signing Michael Chandler, a case is beginning to be made that the 33-year-old Brazilian is the best fighter to ever compete in the Santa Monica-based fight firm.
"I'm not the best featherweight in Bellator, I'm the best featherweight in the world," Freire said at a post-match press conference, according to MMA Junkie.
"No other featherweight has my hands. I'm complete. Now I have 11 knockouts and 11 submissions. There's no other featherweight in the world that is as complete as I am."
Scott Coker, who runs Bellator MMA, seemingly agrees with his double champion.
"We are lucky to have him. He's been a great fighter for us, a great ambassador," he said.
"I looked back and I saw a lot of his old clips over the last week, just looking around on our YouTube channels and different places.
"I said, 'This guy reminds me of a young Roberto Duran' if we had to put it in a boxing sense, right? He is a young Roberto Duran.
"He is not afraid of anybody. He's going to bring it. I think he's the best. Right now? He's the best featherweight in the world."
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