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This past Friday night, featherweight finishing machine Patricio "Pitbull" Freire recaptured the Bellator featherweight championship that he has coveted every moment since he dropped the title to Daniel Straus nearly two years ago.



He took the series with Straus, the fight, and the title with a second-round guillotine submission in the main event of Bellator 178 in Uncasville, CT.



The multi-fight series between Freire and Straus--the top two featherweights in the Bellator organization--has now reached four total scraps, with Freire going 3-1 in them. In each fight, the stakes were high, as the first fight was in the Bellator featherweight tournament final and the following three fights were all for the featherweight strap.



While some may be scratching their heads as to why these two beasts have fought four times, Freire feels the series has shown and proved who the stands atop the 145-pound division, not only in Bellator but in all of MMA.



"Everybody wanted to see the fight, because everybody wants to know who the best is," Freire told FloCombat. "We are always fighting for the title in the toughest division. We fought for the tournament title and the last three for world titles. You can forget the fight with Jose Aldo and Max Holloway in the UFC; this fight showed you who the best 145-pounder in the world is. This fight showed you who the best featherweight in the world is."



The sheer quantity of fights between the two may seem a bit much, but no one could argue the level of violence and excitement exhibited during their bouts. Whether the fights finished early or went the distance, Freire and Straus put it all on the line each time and left everything in the cage. The newly crowned champion takes great pride and honor in that fact.



"Every moment we were trying to take each other's heads off," Freire said. "We are trying to finish the fight. We aren't conserving anything. We aren't trying to play it safe and grind out a win. We aren't trying to keep the belt fighting a safe fight. Each minute of each round we have tried to take each other's heads off. That's what's different from our fights and the others."



One formality that meant a great deal to Freire was to finally be able to remove the "former champion" tag from his name. The added bonus that he had the opportunity to regain the title from the man who took it from him in Straus was just a thick layer of icing on the cake.



"It means my career," Freire said. "I'm not in this game to be just another fighter in the 145-pound weight class. I'm here to be the best in the world. To get that back, to get that 'former' out of there and to put 'champion' back in there means everything to me. "



The potential super fight between the newly re-crowned Bellator featherweight champion and the newly gifted UFC featherweight champion Aldo is nothing more than a pipe dream at this point. It is a topic that Freire feels strongly about and is more than happy to address. To put it bluntly, Freire has no respect for how Aldo was awarded the title. Freire welcomes the hypothetical challenge of fighting Aldo and feels that he is not the true champion of the division.



"Let's be real," Freire said. "He never earned that belt. That belt was given to him as a present. He beat Frankie Edgar and then he became champion because they stripped Conor McGregor of the belt. Conor McGregor is the true champion in my eyes. I will beat them both, so it doesn't matter to me."



Freire feels he is the best fighter in the world, regardless of weight classes. He is not ready to shut up. Rather he is ready to put up and go north or south in weight to prove to the rest of the world what he already believes.



"I don't care," Freire said. "I will fight any human in the world. I will go up, I will go down. I am at different level. I fight to show everybody who isn't paying attention to this shit, that I am the best fighter in the world."