Reigning
Bellator
MMA featherweight champion
Patricio
Freire will take his talents to the Land of the Rising Sun for
the first time when Bellator and the
Rizin Fighting Federation join forces for Rizin 40 on Saturday
at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. A non-title showdown
with current Rizin featherweight champion
Kleber
Koike Erbst awaits “Pitbull” in the co-main event.
Freire enters the match on the strength of back-to-back victories.
He last fought at Bellator 286, where he outpointed
Adam Borics
to a unanimous decision across five rounds in their Oct. 1
encounter. Erbst, meanwhile, finds himself on a seven-fight winning
streak. He last competed on Oct. 23, when he put away
Juntaro
Ushiku with a triangle choke in the second round of their Rizin
39 confrontation.
As Freire and Erbst approach their forthcoming battle at 145
pounds, a look at some of the numbers that have accompanied them to
this point:
35: Years of age for Freire, who was born in Mossoro, Brazil, on
July 7, 1987.
11: Freire victories by knockout or technical knockout, accounting
for 32% of his career total (34). His list of victims includes
Pedro
Carvalho,
Michael
Chandler,
Daniel
Weichel,
Wilson Reis
and
Georgi
Karakhanyan. Freire owns 12 other victories by submission (36%)
and 11 more by decision (32%).
12: First-round finishes on the Freire resume, highlighted by his
61-second technical knockout of Chandler at Bellator 221 on May 11,
2019.
75: Rounds completed by Freire as a professional mixed martial
artist. He has gone the distance on 14 different occasions and
carries an 11-3 record in those bouts.
.743: Cumulative winning percentage between the five men—
A.J. McKee,
Benson
Henderson,
Daniel
Straus,
Pat Curran
and
Joe
Warren—who have beaten Freire. They boast a combined record of
113-39.
33: Years of age for Erbst, who was born on Oct. 16, 1989 in Sao
Paulo, Brazil.
27: Erbst wins by submission, accounting for 88% of his career
total (31). His methods of choice: 13 triangle chokes, seven
rear-naked chokes, three brabo chokes, three armbars and one face
crank. Erbst holds two other wins by knockout or technical knockout
(6%) and two more by decision (6%).
1,491: Days since Erbst last suffered a setback. He has pieced
together a 7-0 record following his unanimous decision loss to
Mateusz
Gamrot at KSW 46 on Dec. 1, 2018.
15: Consecutive calendar years in which Erbst has fought at least
once. In addition to his 3-0 mark in 2022, he went 1-0 in 2008, 3-3
in 2009, 1-0-1 in 2010, 2-0 in 2011, 4-0 in 2012, 3-0 in 2013, 1-0
in 2014, 4-1 in 2015, 3-0 in 2016, 2-0 in 2017, 1-1 in 2018, 1-0 in
2019, 1-0 in 2020 and 2-0 in 2021.
105: Combined victories between the five men—
Mateusz
Gamrot,
Artur
Sowinski,
Toshiaki
Kitada,
Yoshiro
Maeda and
Toshikazu
Iseno—who have defeated Erbst. They sport a cumulative .648
winning percentage at 105-55-9.