Patricio Freire calls for Bellator to create men’s 125 division

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Bellator’s two-division champ would like to see the promotion add another weight class.

Bellator MMA has a women’s flyweight division, but they’ve yet to get one started on the men’s side. There’s at least one fighter who wants to see that change.

Patricio “Pitbull” Freire, Bellator’s reigning featherweight and lightweight champion, tweeted out his support for a new weight class added to the fold. In the process, he took a subtle shot at how the UFC has historically been unable to get its own flyweight division any traction with fans.

“I am sure [Bellator MMA, Scott Coker, Mike Kogan, and Rich Chou] would know how to work a Flyweight division and make people interested,” Freire said. “There [are] several high level prospects and top free agents hoping for that. I’m [sure] it’d be great for Bellator and the fans too.”

Of course, it wasn’t too long ago that there was legitimate concern that the UFC would shutter its flyweight division, but Dana White recently said that men’s 125 is here to stick around. While that’s all fine and dandy, there are still only 15 men’s flyweights on the roster, so that’s not saying a whole lot.

We’ll see if Patricio can do enough to sway the Bellator president Coker, who’d declared in June that they weren’t interested in snapping up the flyweights the UFC had cut, such as former title challengers John Moraga and Wilson Reis.

“We’re going to have our hands full,” Coker said. “If at some point, we felt like it was something we wanted to do, we’d really think it through. I don’t want to be jumping in and out of different weight classes. If we’re going to do it, we’re going to do it right.”

In the meantime, “Pitbull” is going to defend his featherweight title in the quarterfinals of Bellator’s grand prix, against SBG Ireland’s Pedro Carvalho in March.