After a lifetime of fighting, can Patricio Pitbull find the fountain of youth at UFC 314?

Patricio Pitbull soaks in the scene at the UFC 314 press conference at Michelob ULTRA Arena on March 7, 2025, in Las Vegas. (Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

(Chris Unger via Getty Images)

In the spring of 2010, almost 15 years to the day before Saturday’s UFC 314 pay-per-view, a 22-year-old Patricio Pitbull left Brazil for the first time to compete. He traveled to Connecticut, of all places, to partake in the Bellator Season 2 featherweight tournament against a Canadian fellow named WiIliam Romero. As a trademark jiu-jitsu specialist from Brazil, he tapped Romero quickly. A heel hook in the first round.

It was his first major triumph.

Two months later he lost a split decision to Joe Warren in the featherweight finals, which was his first big setback. Within a two-month span, Pitbull experienced the highs and lows of fighting, a back-and-forth that would become a working theme throughout his career for the next 15 years. It’s followed him all the way to the UFC, where he debuts against Yair Rodriguez at UFC 314 as a multi-time, two-division champion looking to add one more title to his collection in the twilight of a remarkable career.

How did Pitbull — the very picture of perseverance — arrive here?

“I couldn’t tell you something specific, but I think that it’s just that I want to always be the best,” he says. “I want to be perfect. The reason for my entire life is that I want to be the best in everything that I do.”

This all started long before he took off his shoes for money. This started way back in Mossoro in the early 1990s, at the beer gut of Brazil’s geography that protrudes into the Atlantic, Rio Grande do Norte, where he and his brother, Patricky, would brawl at the drop of a hat before either was old enough to read Dr. Seuss. The two were always throwing hands, head-locking each other and tossing each other to the other side of the room whenever parental heads were turned. It was contentious in the Pitbull household. You might say that the Pitbull brothers, whose birthname is Freire, had what’s called a natural aptitude for fighting.

Unofficially, Patricio had a thousand amateur fights with Patricky, an endless battle that raged on even (especially?) as the brothers formed their own gym in 2010.

“It’s too many to count,” Patricio says. “I really can’t tell you how many times we fought. It was daily for many reasons, for every reason, and for many years. And I see this [same thing] with my two sons right now. They are just like me and Patricky were back then — they fight for everything.

“And then when we started training martial arts, it wasn’t just brothers, it became real fights — we would take each other down, we would look for submissions, we would do everything, but we would avoid punching to the face. Everything else was allowed. And so, I can say that my biggest and my longest sparring partner has been my brother.”

The “want to always be the best” turned Patricio into a traveling salesman for a little while there. He’s been through every bible belt, backwater and tornado alley in America. Concho, Oklahoma? Check. Yuma, Arizona? Check. Mulvane, Kansas? Check, check, check. He’s won a whopping 24 times since his Bellator debut, distinguishing him as one of the most iconic names in the company’s history. He also lost seven times.

That’s a 24-7 record, for a guy who has been at it 24/7.

Patricio Pitbull is the most decorated fighter in Bellator history. (Hans Gutknecht/MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images)

(MediaNews Group/Los Angeles Daily News via Getty Images via Getty Images)

He has lived through the Bjorn Rebney days, where he jumped into another featherweight tournament — this time the Bellator Season 4 tourney, which he won in 2011 — and lived to tell about it. Though he lost his first try at a title in 2013, again via a split decision, this time to Pat Curran, he kept going.

The faces and places breezed by. Mike Kogan. Rich Chou. Lake Charles, Louisiana. Rio Rancho, New Mexico. Temecula, California. Deserts and reservations. Another tournament, this one the Season 9 featherweight tournament, and Pitbull won again. And this time as MMA’s Sisyphus made his way back to challenge Curran again for the title in 2014, he pushed the boulder right over the mountaintop.

He beat Curran to win his first belt.

Then it was Scott Coker. Farther off locales, across the pond. Rome. Tel Aviv. He lost the belt to Daniel Straus, and won it back from Daniel Straus. In between he lost a weight-jump lark at 155 pounds against Benson Henderson. Later in 2019 he won the lightweight title too, against Michael Chandler, another Bellator grad who now does big business in the UFC.

Ah, yes, the UFC. The other company that ran parallel to the Pitbull brand for all those years, which now, at long last — just a few months before his 38th birthday — is his new home.

“I was sad with Bellator ending, but I was not sad with parting ways with PFL,” he says, referring to the PFL’s acquisition of the promotion that raised him. “At the moment that they decided that Bellator was dead, so was my relationship with them. As far as getting to the UFC, it’s amazing. I’m very happy to be here. I dreamed about it ever since I was a kid, and it’s finally happening. I feel in a very good place in my career right now. I think that the moment is perfect for me to shine on this organization as well.”

To say that Pitbull has seen a lot in his day is to put it mildly. If you want to study fighter resiliency, he is encyclopedic. After an undefeated run from 2017-21 in which he held two titles and defended his featherweight belt five times, the dream of a UFC crossover was at its peak. How would he fare against the likes of Alexander Volkanovski? Jose Aldo? Max Holloway?

Patricio Pitbull (right) makes his long-awaited UFC 314 debut against Yair Rodriguez. (Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC)

(Chris Unger via Getty Images)

That kind of reverie was for the longest time worthless, because there was that partition between the UFC and Bellator. We’d never know. Then he lost the title against A.J. McKee in 2021 before winning it back against A.J. McKee in 2022. He tried for a third title, this time as a shrink-gunned bantamweight, but lost to Sergio Pettis. He made a cameo in Japan for Super Rizin 2 and lost to Chihiro Suzuki, which was the first time in his career that he lost back-to-back fights.

Long Beach. Saitama, Japan. Then Belfast, Northern Ireland, where Pitbull showed he wasn’t done yet. He knocked out Jeremy Kennedy there in March 2024 before that chapter of his life came to an end. After butting heads with Donn Davis and the PFL, he made a very public request to be released.

It all led to Miami for UFC 314. From Uncasville to Dana White and the Octagon, where he could be a fight away from realizing his dream of fighting for a UFC title, as well. It can’t be the case. It shouldn’t be. His path wasn’t straight, and — despite his best efforts — wasn’t perfect. He lost too many times. And he kept getting back up.

And somehow, here he is, arriving to the UFC not unlike the feisty kid who used to throw down with his older brother, Patricky, just for looking at him sideways,

“The only thing that the age has affected me is the amount of injuries that I’ve accumulated during my career,” he says, when standing back to take inventory. “And sometimes those injuries make me feel older than I am. But as far as my mentality? As far as my performance goes? I feel like I’m 10 years old.”

Here Pitbull smiles the smile of a man who has seen many things through the same eyes as that 10-year-old.

“I feel I still have the same drive as when I was a kid. I’m still performing at the highest level, so I feel that I have many years to come as a fighter,” he says. “You see there are guys at the gym, they’re still beginning their careers or have many less years of fighting than I do, and they’re already stopping because of injuries. I feel I was kind of lucky, also, and I really took very good care of myself to be still among the best in this sport.

“And I still see many years to come.”

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After a lifetime of fighting, can Patricio Pitbull find the fountain of youth at UFC 314?

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