Over the weekend, the media were quick to ask UFC President Dana White about the comments that Scott Coker made regarding Bellator’s light heavyweight division. Coker stated that their division was better than the UFC’s.
White responded with a short and quick, “Isn’t he cute?” The media followed-up by asking about if the UFC be interested in cross promotional super fights. White dismissed this saying nothing would be interesting.
When the media followed-up asking about arguably Bellator’s top fighter, Patricio Pitbull (30-4), White played it off. He said he couldn’t tell you anything about Bellator’s double champ. Pitbull wasn’t pleased with the response.
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. https://t.co/xd52IBplbp
— Patricio Pitbull (@PatricioPitbull) August 23, 2020
How would Pitbull fair in the UFC?
Let me start out by stating that I’m a big fan of Patricio Pitbull. I think he is a great fighter, and I truly believe that he can compete with anyone in the UFC‘s featherweight division. There is a reason that Pitbull is currently ranked 4th in the ESPN featherweight rankings.
I believe that Patricio Pitbull would be squarely in the top five of the UFC‘s featherweight rankings if he was with the promotion. Would he beat Alexander Volkanovski, Max Holloway, or Zabit Magomedsharipov? I’m not sure about that, but he would definitely be competitive.
Where I don’t see him being very competitive is in the UFC‘s lightweight division. Pitbull is the Bellator lightweight champion as well, but that’s not his natural weight class. The UFC‘s lightweight division is the deepest division in the history of the sport.
Yes, Patricio Freire has a knockout over top free agent Michael Chandler, but I’m not sure how he would do against the UFC‘s best. Imagine Pitbull against Khabib Nurmagomedov, Justin Gaethje, Conor McGregor, Tony Ferguson, Dustin Poirier, and I could go on and on. He’d be a sizable underdog in any of those contests.
If the UFC and Bellator would ever agree to such an event, I would implore Pitbull to take on the UFC‘s featherweight champion. That would be a competitive fight. However, I don’t think he could swim with those sharks at lightweight. What do you think?