It has been 18 months since Patricio "Pitbull" Freire last defended the Bellator featherweight championship. On Oct. 1, 2022, Freire won a five-round decision at Bellator 286 over Adam Borics in Long Beach, Calif., in the first defense of his second reign as the featherweight champion.
Since then, he's won a non-title bout on a Bellator versus Rizin show over Kieber Koike Erbst, entered the Bellator bantamweight grand prix and lost to Sergio Pettis and then fought at lightweight in Rizin and was knocked out by Chihiro Suzuki.
On Friday in Belfast, Northern Ireland, he'll return. And that will also mark the return of veteran Jeremy Kennedy after 13 months. Kennedy hasn't fought since a win in Dublin, Ireland, on Feb. 25, 2023, over Pedro Carvalho, as he's waited for his shot at the belt.
A veteran of the UFC, the PFL and Bellator, Kennedy wasn't all that interested in more non-tile bouts, especially after all he'd done.
On Friday, Kennedy will get that chance he's longed for when he challenges Freire for the belt in one of two title fights at Bellator 302, which will be streamed live in the U.S. on Max.
"I was fighting those top guys and each win was getting me closer and closer to that title fight," Kennedy told KevinIole.com. "And then that last one in Ireland was my No. 1 contender shot, so when I won that, that was it. That was what my next fight was going to be.
"It was going to be for the belt and so my manager and me, we were on the same page that, whatever it took, we were going to get that fight. And then circumstances just kept popping up."
One of the circumstances when the PFL, which acquired Bellator in November, decided to put on the PFL versus Bellator pay-per-view in February in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The card was supposed to match the champs of each organization against each other, so Freire was matched with PFL champion Jesus Pinedo.
But a week before the bout, Pinedo injured his back and pulled out. But before that happened, Kennedy agreed to another No. 1 contender's bout against James Gallagher. Even though he was determined to fight for the belt, he agreed to that because he'd been out so long.
"It wasn't a step backwards," he said. "It was just a lateral step. It was a fight for me to go earn again, compete again, stay active and of course anything can happen, but I knew i had to win that fight."
And then Gallagher was pulled and the PFL made Freire versus Kennedy. And while Freire has lost two in a row for the first time in his career and is just 3-3 in his last six, Kennedy isn't looking past him or believing he's anything but elite.
It's the way a fighter must think, clearly, but Kennedy fairly raves about Freire's talents.
"He's the guy and he's the GOAT, or whatever," Kennedy said of Freire at featherweight. "He hasn't lost at 145. I'm still fighting that multi-division champ, that multi-time defending champ, the guy who's never lost at 145, the best 145er in Bellator history. I'm still looking at that. I think the cut down to 135 [to fight in the bantamweight grand prix] is what really hurt him."
Kennedy wants to remain active assuming he wins, and why not? Not only hasn't he fought in 13 months, he was on a heater when he was sidelined. He'd won three in a row and six of his last seven. After years of racking up wins in the biggest promotions, he's now got the opportunity to cement his legacy by beating one of the most recognizable MMA fighters in the world outside of the UFC.
And Kennedy, whose 19-3 record includes a 2018 defeat to the UFC's Alex Volkanovski, is eager for it.
"The timing is finally working in my favor now," he said.
It will really be in his favor if he gets his hand raised on Friday. Then, his life will really change for the better.