Patricky Pitbull Shakes Things Up at 39, Departs PFL for New Chapter with GFL
Patricky Pitbull requested his release from PFL and is switching up the first letter in his new promotional affiliation. The former Bellator lightweight champion announced this development on his personal X page and it was first reported from MMA Fighting that Patricky 'Pitbull' Freire would be leaving the Professional Fighters League for a promotion set to kick off operations this year, GFL.
Global Fight League has been steadily announcing some massive prospective names for this newly emerging entity. This is as the promotion will conduct a draft on Friday for their team format-based mixed martial arts organization.
Patricky Pitbull is now out of his contractual agreement with PFL as is his brother Patricio Pitbull although the latter's next promotional destination is not confirmed as of this writing. Patricio Pitbull was excited to hear about the big news related to his brother and Pitbull also posted a supportive message on X to Patricky when he said:
"Congratulations to my brother @PatrickyPitbull on his new deal with @mmagfl! I'm sure a lot of exciting fights will be coming."
Check out Patricio Pitbull's message to his GFL-bound brother below
Patricky Pitbull and his prior track record in MMA
Patricky Pitbull is similar to his brother Patricio Pitbull in as far as they both carved out some of the most notable legacies ever in Bellator MMA history. The elder Pitbull brother put together close to thirty fights under the BMMA banner. Freire holds the distinction of garnering the most knockouts in company history with eleven striking-based finishes inside of the Bellator cage.
The 39-year-old also competed under the Rizin banner during prior cross-promotional efforts between Bellator and the Japanese MMA powerhouse. While he fought for RFF, Pitbull competed against the likes of Luiz Gustavo, Tatsuya Kawajiri, and current Rizin lightweight champion Roberto 'Satoshi' de Souza
The Brazilian native notched wins inside the Bellator cage over Ben Henderson, Josh Thomson, and Peter Queally, to name but a few. For the 2024 season, Pitbull stepped into the PFL Smart Cage for a pair of bouts at 155 pounds. However, the tenure did not yield favourable results for Pitbull, who lost both fights to Clay Collard and Bruno Miranda.
In the social media address, Pitbull spoke of all the amazing moments he had during his lengthy Bellator MMA run and described his relatively more succinct PFL as fun. Patricky is excited about what is next, and presumably, many in the MMA community share that sentiment.