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Patricio Pitbull is now officially a roster member of the UFC and apparently Dana White had to pull some strings to lock in his debut opponent.
Aljamain Sterling and Pitbull had a brief exchange on social media that seemed to indicate the two wanted to fight one another. According to the former multi-division Bellator MMA champion though, the former bantamweight champion was actually presented to Patricio Freire. But it did not gain traction and Yair Rodriguez ended up being locked in for Pitbull's promotional debut for UFC 314.
Articulating his answer in Portuguese while speaking with MMA Fighting, the translated text from Pitbull saw him say"
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"They asked if I would fight Aljamain Sterling in March. I said I'm in, but he ran... They said Dana White was going to announce the fight last night and then [Yair Rodriguez] would have to take it. That's what happened. Let's see if he'll stay on the fight or gets injured."
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Check out Patricio Pitbull's comments regarding Sterling and Rodriguez below:
Patricio Pitbull's UFC negotiation insights
Patricio Pitbull described how the early part of negotiations with the UFC were hard because not all parties sounded very excited at first. As per Pitbull, this led to the UFC representative who was in favor of the signing convincing the other unsure party a bit. His manager asked Patricio Pitbull to trust him and that the contractual agreement would work out in the end.
The 37-year-old also mentioned that he was offered Steve Garcia for a fight this weekend. Pitbull was not sure he would have enough time to procure a visa to take that fight and alas he was not able to. Garcia was supposed to fight Edson Barboza this weekend which ended up falling out after the latter withdrew.
Freire mentioned that Yair Rodriguez was initially offered the fight but didn't respond. This led to Patricio Pitbull messaging the former interim UFC featherweight champion, asking Rodriguez if he would fight him or not.
Patricio Freire teased Rodriguez by questioning where his Mexican pride was, with the 32-year-old mentioning how he would be more than open to welcoming Pitbull into the promotion.
As per Pitbull, the UFC had reached out to Rodriguez with an offer to fight him but 'El Pantera' supposedly asked for a ranked opponent instead. The UFC CEO worked his magic behind the scenes and Dana White eventually got the Pitbull vs. Rodriguez bout locked in.
Despite the uncertainties, the former BMMA lightweight titleholder and multiple-time BMMA featherweight champion kept training with Rodriguez in mind the entire time and it all fell into place as his manager assured him.
Check out Patricio Pitbull's finest finishes below:
