Bellator 160: Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire quits with leg injury, handing victory to Benson Henderson
Patricio “Pitbull” Freire wasn’t looking to honor the release of the Roberto Duran film, “Hands of Stone,” on Friday with his own “no mas,” but the moment was certainly similar.
Freire suddenly stopped fighting 2 minutes, 26 seconds into the second round, stunning all, including the victorious Benson Henderson, in the main event of Bellator 160 at Honda Center.
After taking a seat on his stool to elevate his right leg, Freire reported that he injured the leg on a kick during the round and could no longer continue.
“I knew for sure when I checked two of his kicks, both of the checks were [good],” said Henderson (24-6), a former UFC lightweight champion. “One, he backed away right away. I worked on check kicks. I guess I’ll take a ‘W’ any way I can get it.”
Action halted with Freire briefly hopping, pointing to his right foot and turning from Henderson to reach his corner.
Henderson didn’t do much in a first round that inspired boos from the crowd as former featherweight Freire (25-4) couldn’t bridge the distance Henderson sought to maintain.
Even though the action didn’t increase significantly in the second round, Henderson triumphed and quickly accepted a Nov. 19 lightweight title shot at Bellator champion Michael Chandler, who previously knocked out Pitbull’s brother, Patricky Freire.
Before the main event, lightweight Derek Anderson of Carlsbad absorbed heavy punches and avoided a choke try in the first round before landing his own power shots en route to a unanimous-decision victory over Saad Awad of San Bernardino by scores of 30-27, 29-28 and 29-28.
In a 149-pound catch-weight bout, Riverside’s Georgi Karakhanyan repeated a prior victory over Huntington Beach-trained Bubba Jenkins with a first-round knockout.
Karakhanyan (25-6-1) held up Jenkins’ foot on a failed kick attempt with his left hand, then delivered a massive right-handed punch to the chin to end the fight just 53 seconds into the action.
Long Beach featherweight A.J. McKee (5-0) overwhelmed Huntington Beach-trained Cody Walker standing and on the canvas before finishing Walker by a modified guillotine choke 32 seconds into the second round.
Bellator also announced the official signing of former UFC welterweight title challenger Rory MacDonald of Canada, who staged the 2015 fight of the year in a loss to then-champion Robbie Lawler.
MacDonald said he’s planning on “taking over” Bellator’s welterweight division, adding that he’ll consider fighting at middleweight too.
Follow Lance Pugmire on Twitter @latimespugmire
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