Big fan of Patricio Freire here. I’ve written glowingly about him before as one of the greatest fighters to ever live and a peerless martial artist who has thoroughly mastered every aspect of the game. While he easily topped the list of Sherdog’s 10 best Bellator MMA fighters of all-time, he remains underrated, as many fans fail give him his proper due simply because his accomplishments have not occurred on a canvas emblazoned with the Ultimate Fighting Championship logo.
As such, it was a treat to speak with “Pitbull” in advance of his showdown with Kleber Koike Erbst in the Bellator-Rizin Fighting Federation co-promoted Rizin 40 main event on Saturday in Saitama, Japan. Our interview was facilitated by the brilliant Marcelo Alonso, who also served as translator:
Sherdog.com: You have excellent grappling and great striking, but to me, your greatest weapon has always been your mind. Your ability to implement gameplans, stay disciplined for the entirety of a fight, make consistently good decisions and take advantage of opponent mistakes is unparalleled. Do you train and prepare this aspect of your game, too?
Freire: Since the beginning, I’ve always tried to train every aspect of fighting, to be complete. I like to predict what my opponent is likely to do and have a sparring partner who will constantly replicate that in sparring and drills. The keys to my game are patience and calculating how to use it. That involves finding the right balance between being patient and aggressive at any given point of a fight. I also watch every single fight that my opponent has been in and study every single technique, how they move, what their tendencies are, every single detail. I’ve never needed a mental coach to do this. I don’t know if this was inborn, but since the beginning of my career, I’ve always had the right attitude and approach. My mindset was always confident—“I’m going to win. I’m going to win. I’m going to win”—along with my work ethic. Even then, I was thinking of adjustments, not for a specific fight but for what a champion’s life should be. For instance, how to deal with the various pressures of being champion, including family life.
Sherdog.com: When you first joined Bellator, you used a boxing stance. Now, you use a more bladed, karate setup. What was the motivation for this change?
Freire: Early in my career, I was going through too many wars, getting hit too often by opponents with longer reach. I felt that karate would be the perfect style to reduce the amount of damage I was taking, especially straight punches, and also control the distance that way. Nowadays, I can use either stance, depending on the opponent, and both are very important to my style.
Sherdog.com: I want to talk a little about your work as a coach, since the Pitbull Brothers camp has already enjoyed considerable success. Is it more difficult mentally to prepare for a fight or to corner your older brother, Patricky Freire?
Freire: It’s about the same, as I’m very cold and calculating in my approach to both. Whenever my brother follows our gameplans, we always have success. When he doesn’t, we don’t. That’s the most difficult aspect of being a coach—getting my brother to follow the gameplan.
Sherdog.com: I have two sons that are 17 months apart, which I notice is the same age difference between you and Patricky. Despite being so close in age, my own sons are polar opposites in personality. Were you and Patricky similar growing up, or were there significant differences?
Freire: I’ve never been asked that before, and it’s very interesting. Normally, the firstborn is closer to the mother, and that's what happened to Patricky. She was very worried about him all the time. Meanwhile, I naturally became closer to our father. Somehow, that affected our personalities and what we became as fighters. Patricky took longer to go out, become confident and prove himself as a man since our mother always wanted to protect him. Meanwhile, me being closer to our father, he encouraged me to go out, attain skills and prove myself. The proof of what I’m saying is that despite being younger, I was the first one to become a professional fighter, and Patricky later followed me. Incidentally, my father was a colonel in the military police in Brazil.
Sherdog.com: When Max Holloway was the UFC featherweight champion, I recall some people on Twitter claiming that you would have “zero chance” against him because you were too short. However, the man who defeated Holloway three straight times, current champion Alexander Volkanovski, is the exact same height as you. Personally, I see considerable similarities in style between you and Volkanovski, and you two are even close to age. Do you notice those similarities, and how do you think a potential fight would go, since you are the two best featherweights on the planet right now?
Freire: The first sign that someone knows nothing about fighting is saying, “He’s bigger than you, so he will beat you.” If I believed such nonsense myself, I wouldn’t have come close to accomplishing what I have. I used my intelligence to figure out how I could still control the distance and succeed despite being smaller, and I imagine Volkanovski did the same. We definitely share that in common, how we fight for the distance. However, a big difference is that Volkanovski very rarely finishes his opponents, whereas I’m the opposite. I always try to submit or knock out my opponents, and I think that in a 25-minute fight against Volkanovski, I would have plenty of chances to create such situations. I also think that Volkanovski’s striking is more limited, relegated to his jab, cross and left kick. That would be predictable for me, and I would beat him. Certainly, it would be a great fight against a great opponent. Incidentally, a lot of people think Islam Makhachev will have an easy time against Volkanovski, but I don’t believe so. Volkanovski is very tricky and slippery, and Makhachev will face something very different than he ever has before. I think it will be a very tough, close fight. There’s an analogue to my fight against Michael Chandler, where no one was giving me a chance; and look what happened. Makhachev is a very tough guy deserving of respect, but one shouldn’t underestimate Volkanovski.
Sherdog.com: Looking ahead, given the success of Pitbull Brothers—you recently worked with big names like Henry Cejudo and Paulo Costa—do you intend to continue with this after your retirement and do you plan to expand outside of Brazil into other countries?
Freire: A lot of fighters feel I analyze matches very well and come up with great strategies for them to follow. We’re discovering a lot of great young talent, and in the future, if they deserve it, I will help them with their preparation and corner them. I was very happy to work with Cejudo and Costa, as well as Fabio Maldonado, and I have no problems with fighters requesting my help. However, I will not leave Brazil. I love this country, and Pitbull Brothers will stay here.