Pitbull is out of Bellator 188 (Photo: Reproduction/Facebook PatricioPitbull)
Patrick Pitbull will no longer put his belt on the line at Bellator 188, next Friday (17), in Tel Avivi, Israel. The organization's featherweight champion was injured and is out of the fight against the German Daniel weichel, which would mark his first title defense since regaining the number 1 spot by submitting Daniel Straus in April of this year. The fighter himself posted a statement on his social media.
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“With sadness I announce that I will not fight in Israel next week. Multiple injuries prevent me from moving forward. About two months ago, due to a training accident, I suffered a serious injury and started treating it immediately. I had to stop training for a few weeks and then I was able to start with some limitations. But due to these, other parts of my body became overloaded and new injuries appeared. I've been doing physical therapy 3x a day, we managed to get a clinic to provide a 25 thousand dollar machine so I could sleep with it every day, and although I wasn't in the best condition I had no intention of leaving the fight. In all my years in Bellator I only left a fight once due to a broken hand. Until Wednesday the fight was 100% certain. On Thursday, doubt arose when one of the injuries worsened. I discussed with my team until 2 am what to do. I decided to test myself on Friday in my last sparring session. Then it became obvious that I was in no condition to fight. It would be disrespectful to me, my fans, my opponent and Bellator. I will have to spend 30 days without exerting effort and then I can return to training. I intend to fight in February at the latest and defend my belt against Daniel weichel. See you soon,” wrote Pitbull.
The first time that Patricio became Bellator champion was in 2014, when he defeated Pat Curran at Bellator 123. He also defended his title twice, but was dethroned by the same Straus. At 30 years old, Patricio has 18 fights in the organization, 14 wins and four losses.
Weichel, in turn, is on a streak of four victories, the most recent over Brazilian John Macapá, a former TUF Brasil 1 participant, last April. At 32 years old, the German has been with Bellator since 2014, having accumulated eight positive results and just one setback, precisely against Pitbull, the first time he challenged for the belt.
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