Patricky Pitbull is “hungry to fight and win” after over a year since his last MMA bout, and vows to unleash his power against Peter Queally at Bellator 258, which goes down Friday night at Uncasville’s Mohegan Sun Arena.
Back to the Bellator cage after a 2-1 run in the RIZIN lightweight grand prix in 2019, losing to Tofiq Musayev in the final, Pitbull says he was chasing “a bigger challenge to motivate myself” because “it was getting a bit boring” dealing with the expectation for a title shot that never came. His brother Patricio Pitbull currently holds both the featherweight and lightweight belts in the company.
This time, however, Pitbull feels he will finally secure a shot at the 155-pound gold with a win over Queally, who stopped Ryan Scope in his most recent Bellator bout in September 2019.
“What motivates me the most is knowing that I’ll be fighting someone from SBG [Ireland], a gym that doesn’t have many good athletes,” Pitbull said in an interview with MMA Fighting. “I know that my gym has many more high-level athletes than theirs, but isn’t as popular maybe because of their geographic location in Europe.
“I know that my brother, the Pitbull Brothers fighters and I have what it takes to destroy the entire SBG. Just like Patricio beat Pedro Carvalho, I’ll beat Peter Queally the same way. Easy.”
Pitbull contender expects his brother to vacate the lightweight title after he defends the featherweight gold with a win over A.J. McKee in the Bellator grand prix finals, opening the path for him to bring the other belt back to Brazil.
Pitbull expects to be matched up against Brent Primus for the vacant throne later this year, reason why he believes the former champion was “smart” to avoid a fight with Alexander Shabliy on May 21, as reported by Russian outlets earlier this month but never announced by Bellator.
“My next fight will probably be against Brent Primus for the belt,” Pitbull said. “I don’t think he wants to risk his head knowing that this title fight between us may happen. He’s being smart. If he has enough money [to wait], that’s a good decision instead of facing a Russian newcomer that nobody knows, maybe only in Russia.”