According to Patricio Freire, his most recent loss at Bellator 145 occurred because he was not the most desperate man in the cage that night.
Last November, Freire relinquished his featherweight title to Daniel Straus in a five-round bout at Scottrade Center in St. Louis. “Pitbull” started slowly -- Straus had him reeling from a a straight left hand in the second stanza -- and couldn’t recover, falling to the American Top Team product for the first time in their three meetings.
In hindsight, Freire believes that Straus knew another loss to his Brazilian rival would remove him from the title picture for the foreseeable future, and that mindset made all the difference.