Some of Bellator’s best fighters are ready to walk from the brand.
Patricio Pitbull and Patchy Mix, champions in Bellator’s featherweight and bantamweight divisions respectively, have both made it clear that they hope to leave the MMA promotion.
Their public pleas to Bellator come after numerous posts from top talents like Pitbull and Mix complaining about inactivity since the promotion was purchased by the PFL roughly a year ago.
“We lost rhythm, we lost part of our careers waiting for something that never came,” Pitbull told MMA Fighting in a recent interview, speaking on the recent inactivity he has experienced. “It’s bad for me as a champion. I need to stay active. We know I’m not getting any younger, too. So I spoke with my managers and since my contract is not that long, it’s close to the end, we’ll ask to leave. I need to work.”
Pitbull fought just once this year, stopping Jeremy Kennedy in the third round of a March bout due to strikes. The Brazilian Bellator vet told MMA Fighting about how he was “left with only promises,” claiming that a once-discussed big New Year’s Eve fight has since fallen through, leaving him inactive until at least 2025.
Just hours after Pitbull mentioned his hopes to leave the promotion, Mix also chimed in.
“If you are not gonna have me fight then just please release me from [my] contract,” he said in a post on X. “This is not what I want but if I’m not important to the company being a multi-time champ. Then let me go respectfully.”
Mix similarly also fought just once in 2024, beating Magomed Magomedov in a split decision. 2024 marked just the second time in his professional career that he went a calendar year without competing more than once, with the prior instance being in 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
Bellator hosted just five events in 2024, leaving little room for talents who didn’t join the 2024 PFL regular season to stay active. The promotion had previously planned three other shows in the year, although cards in Paris, Chicago, and Japan were all quietly cancelled in recent months.
Comments from Mix and Pitbull are just the latest in a growing list of gripes issued by fighters in recent months. Bellator Light Heavyweight Champion Corey Anderson spoke about his absence from the cage last month, mentioning on social media that he was “Aging like warm cheese over here waiting for PFL to give me a call.”
In early 2024, former Bellator champ Gegard Mousasi claimed that PFL had cut off communications with him, making it unclear when he would be able to fight. After he went public with his story, it was announced in May that the brand had parted ways with Mousasi. The ex-UFC talent has since filed a lawsuit, claiming breach of contract.
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