At some point — Pat Curran can’t quite remember when — Patricio Freire’s chagrined grumbles and random bursts of aggression faded into background noise, a sort of rage-fueled, two-year long stream of dead air that Curran was more than happy to ignore.
Nearly 22 months have passed since the two rivals competed in the first-ever Bellator fight to broadcast on Spike TV, and in that time the champ has heard it all: complaints about the scoring that awarded Curran a split decision (and the belt) that fateful night, complaints about the preferential treatment Curran allegedly received from former Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney, and of course, complaints about the automatic rematch Rebney gifted Curran once the champ lost his featherweight strap to Daniel Straus in listless fashion.
He’s obviously upset, Curran says of Freire. I mean, I don’t blame him either. I beat him. He’s pretty upset that I got the (Straus) rematch instead him getting the fight. It’s just the way the world works. This is how this sport is. I was given an opportunity to have the rematch and, you know, I’d be stupid not to take it. So I’m really not too worried about what he’s saying and what’s on his mind. He’s just another stepping stone in my eyes. Through all the bitterness, Curran rarely allowed himself to get sucked in.
He captured his belt back in electric fashion, plopping a ruby red cherry atop his Straus trilogy sundae with a Hail Mary choke in the closing moments of the fifth and final round. Then a summer dance date with Freire was set, and considering the way Pitbull talked about it, the contract may as well have read ‘pistols at dawn.’ But once again the grudge match wasn’t meant to be. Curran pulled out with a calf injury two weeks prior to fight night, and somewhere in Natal, another blood vessel burst inside Freire’s neck as he speculated to reporters about how the injury that sidelined the scared little champ wasn’t that serious at all.
What bad blood? For Pat Curran, Patricio Pitbull is ‘just another stepping stone'
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