Patricio Freire suggests ‘warm up’ fight with ‘p*ssy’ Darrion Caldwell before next title defense

Patricio Freire’s next title defense already is in the works, but the Bellator featherweight champion is willing to take a “warm up fight” in the interim.

“Pitbull” puts his title on the line later this year against Daniel Weichel, a rematch that was originally scheduled for November but fell through after the Brazilian suffered a knee injury. But now that he is ready to get back in action, Freire first suggests a clash with bantamweight champion Darrion Caldwell on April 28 in Rosemont, Ill.

Caldwell fired shots at the featherweight kingpin even before Caldwell’s first-round submission victory over Freire’s teammate Leandro Higo at Bellator 195, saying he would go on to beat Higo’s friends Patricio and Patricky Freire next.

Freire says he has already received a bout agreement for a fight with Weichel, and although he declined to reveal the date, he noted that he has “plenty of time for a warm up” against Caldwell at Bellator 198.

“I always tell Bellator that I’m available to fight any time,” Freire told MMA Fighting. “I spoke with the president, I emailed Mike Kogan saying I’m available to fight Caldwell before this fight with Weichel, but they said it’s not their plan now. I told Caldwell that if he really wants this fight, he has to ask them, because I did my part. He’s still tweeting about it. I’d fight. I’m ready. I’d fight him next week.”

Caldwell was an NCAA wrestling champion at 149 pounds nearly a decade ago, before he made his transition to MMA, and Freire thinks Caldwell went down in weight for cage fighting to avoid bigger competition.

”He’s scared, he’s a p*ssy,” Freire said. “He used to compete at 155 pounds in wrestling and now fights at 135 in MMA. Why isn’t he fighting in his weight class? He cut down to 135 and almost dies cutting weight. He’s a p*ssy. He knows he’s f*cked if he goes up. He doesn’t have what it takes to beat me.”

After watching Caldwell tap his teammate Higo with a guillotine last week, Freire promises to finish him with the same technique if they meet one day.

”He has his merits. He caught him with a good position, congratulations, but now he’s talking trash. Wanna come up? Come here. I’m waiting for you,” Freire said. “I will finish him with a guillotine. That’s what’s going to happen. He would get beat up badly on the feet and would try to take me down, and I’d catch him.

”I never thought about this guy because he’s from the weight class below, but then I saw his résumé and saw that he used to compete at 155 and went down to 135. Why? Because he’s scared. He’s afraid of me. He knows he can’t take it. And I can go down to 135 if he wants.”

Freire isn’t sure that the April 28 date would work for a bantamweight clash since he would have less than two months to cut an extra 10 pounds, but he’s down for it.

”He doesn’t want to defend his belt anymore,” Freire said. “He wants to move up straight into a title fight at 145 and then maybe go back to his original weight class at lightweight. Come. Come here, I’m waiting for you.

”Put this in the headline: He’s a p*ssy.”