Bellator MMA Featherweight Champion Daniel Straus will be facing former champion Patricio “Pitbull” Freire for a fourth time this Friday Night at Bellator 178.
With the fourth fight quickly approaching, the champion feels that their familiarity with each other will make the fight harder than before.
“I don’t know, it’s kind of hard to explain sometimes,” Straus told MMA Junkie. “The good part is we kind of know each other; the bad part is we kind of know each other. It’s awkward. Sometimes it’s hard to get excited for the fight, on the other hand it’s not as hard to get excited for this fight, because you know what he’s going to bring to the table, he knows what I’m going to bring to the table. I know what he’s good at; he knows what I’m good at. It just makes the chess game a little bit harder. Where it’s like, ‘What is he going to do this time?’ I’ve gone back to our previous fights to, you know, look at them and look at what I did wrong, look at what I did right and look at what he did wrong, and what he did right.”
Pitbull is currently leading the series with Straus, having won two of the three fights.
Straus doesn’t mind facing Pitbull for a fourth time, but he would also like to see some new contenders in the division.
“I think we need to move on,” Straus said. “And (get) some of these new guys in there. A lot of people that haven’t noticed, this is like the end of an era. The end of the old Bellator era. I’m excited to get this fight over with and, once it’s over with, we’ll see what happens down the road. But right now, I think it’s good to get some fresh faces in there and some more fights, some newer fights.”
Bellator 178 takes place on Friday, April 21 from the Mohegan Sun Arena in Uncasville, Connecticut with Daniel Straus and Patricio Freire headlining. Fightful is providing live coverage of the event.
