Patricio "Pitbull" Freire (photo via Bellator.com)

By FCF Staff

Patricio Freire finally avenged his previous loss to Pat Curran at Bellator 123, and laid claim to the featherweight title in the process, but “Pitbull” says the fight almost didn’t happen due to injury.

According to Freire, the 27 year-old incurred a significant knee injury heading into the September 5th card, and as a result, the bout at one point was cancelled.

While speaking to MMA Fighting.com after his championship victory, Freire relayed that he injured the meniscus in his knee, while throwing flying knees during a photo shoot.

“I was asked a few times about the injury, and I said it wasn’t true,” Freire said. “I actually canceled the fight a couple weeks before the event, I said I couldn’t do it. I had the worst camp of my life. I was so injured I couldn’t throw a kick, and then I injured my shoulder and I couldn’t throw a punch, too. I usually train twice a day, and I was barely training once a day. I had fever every time I stopped training. It was terrible.”

Freire says that his manager, Jorge Guimaraes, eventually convinced him to move forward with the fight. The 22-2 fighter ended up scoring a unanimous decision win over Curran at Bellator 123.

The featherweight has won five straight fights since he lost by split decision to Curran in January, 2013.