Patricio “Pitbull” Challenges Dana White to $1 Million Dollar Bet

This past weekend Dana White claimed he couldn’t offer an opinion on Patricio “Pitbull” Freire, since he doesn’t know anything about the Bellator champ-champ. Well, not only was “Pitbull” quick to introduce himself to White, he’s challenged the UFC President to a very sizable bet.

White claims to not know much about “Pitbull”

Since Jone Jones vacated the UFC’s light heavyweight title, in preparation for a run at heavyweight, there’s been talk about how Bellator’s 205 division stacks up in comparison to the UFC’s. Bellator President Scott Coker argued that their division is now better than the UFC’s with Jones’s move.

Well, following UFC Vegas 7, White was asked to respond to that assertion, and not surprisingly, he shot it down (quotes via MMA Junkie).

“Guys, everybody they have in their light heavyweight division we let go of,” White said. “He’s got the best light heavyweight division?

We let those guys all go. It’s like the (expletive) dumbest thing I’ve heard, but I get it. He’s got to (expletive) do his thing. I’m not (expletive) on him.

He’s got to try to do his thing. He’s got to try to sell fights. The way you don’t sell fights is, ‘I’ve got the best light heavyweight division in the world.’ Everybody that was there was let go from here.”

Now, one thing White glossed over here is that Vadim Nemkov, who just beat Ryan Bader to win Bellator’s light heavyweight title, has never fought for the UFC. Then White was asked about the possibility of staging super fights with Bellator, and he scoffed at the idea, by insinuating the promotion has no top fighters to do so with.

Later, White was asked to comment on Freire, who is Bellator’s featherweight and lightweight champ. White knew who “Pitbull” was, but he proceeded to claim he doesn’t know enough about the champ-champ to offer an opinion on his skills.

“Pitbull” fires back

If you’ve followed Freire over the years, you won’t be surprised to hear that the Brazilian star was quick to respond to White. The dangerous fighter directed these tweets at White.

Hi @danawhite. I’m the one who destroyed steroids machine  @MikeChandlerMMA, whom you said deserves a talk, in 61 seconds.

If you send some of your top fighters to
@BellatorMMA I can do the same to them too. Let’s bet like you did with PRIDE

Any way works fine for me. I’m sure if @danawhite and the @UFC are open to it @BellatorMMA
will let me go there fight their champions.

I will even personally bet 1 million dollars with White that I win. How does that sound for an incentive?

Of course, the chances of the UFC doing a cross-promotional fight with Bellator are slim to none. Does White really not know anything about Freire’s abilities?

It’s possible he hasn’t seen many of his bouts. But, even if that’s the case, its highly unlikely he hasn’t heard anything about “Pitbull” from other fighters, his matchmakers, etc. etc. 

In other words, it certainly looks like White just didn’t want to acknowledge the consensus opinion Freire’s one of the most entertaining and talented fighters on the planet.