Patricio Freire Out of Bellator 188 Main Event Due to Injury

Patricio Freire is out of his fight with Daniel Weichel at Bellator 188 due to multiple injuries. Freire announced on Instagram that he has to withdraw from the fight due to his current injuries. Friere was set to defend his featherweight title in the main event. MMAjunkie has confirmed that Noad Lahat vs. Jeremiah Labiano is the new main event fight.

Freire’s post is below. The show takes place on Thursday from Tel Aviv, Israel. The main card airs on Spike the next day via tape delay.

(Em português nos comentários) I’m sad to announce I’ll no longer be fighting in Israel next week. Multiple injuries prevent me to perform. A couple months ago due to a training accident I suffered a serious injury and started treating it immediately. I had to stop training for a few weeks and then I was able to start with several limitations. But due to those, other parts of my body were overcharged and new injuries kept piling up. I’ve been doing physical therapy three times a day, I was lent a 25k dollars machine to sleep with every day, and although I wasn’t in my best condition I had no intention to pull out. In all my years in Bellator I only pulled out of a fight once due to a hand fracture. Up until Wednesday the fight was 100% on. On Thursday came the doubt as one of the injuries aggravated. I deliberated with my team what to do up to 2am. I decided to test myself on Friday on my last sparring session. And then it became obvious I had no condition to step up in that cage. It’d be a disrespect to me, to the fans, to my opponent and to Bellator. I’ll have to take 30 days off and then I’ll be able to start training again. I plan to fight in February at the latest and defend my belt against Daniel Weichel. See you all soon.

A post shared by @patriciopitbull on Nov 12, 2017 at 11:04am PST