TURIN, ITALY - 2016/04/15: Patricky 'Pitbull' Freire (USA) joined the third and final press conference to present the 21st annual Oktagon, the most prestigious international combat sports gala in PalaAlpiTour of Turin, joined this year the American fighting in Bellator MMA cage, the most spectacular in the world. It's called 'Oktagon

Rizin Grand Prix competitor, Patricky Freire, predicts Rizin 20 will be the ‘best night’ of his career, so far.

Patricky “Pitbull” Freire will be returning to Japan this week when he faces off with Luiz Gustavo at Rizin 20 in the next stage of the Rizin Lightweight Grand Prix. He made a splash in the quarter-finals when he defeated Tatsuya Kawajiri in just 1:10. Though that performance would be a moment of pride for any fighter, he believes that Rizin 20 will be even better.

“I’m gonna finish this fight in the first or second round,” Freire told FanSided via a translator. “I’m going to do the same thing in the final fight. I’m gonna do something that I’m gonna surprise everyone in this tournament. I’ve prepared a lot and it’s gonna be a historic tournament run. And I have two impressive performances in the bag for this, and everyone will be surprised. They think they’ll have found me in the ring. So keep your eyes out. I plan to make this the best night of my career until then.”

Freire is on “loan” from Bellator, due in part, to his brother Patricio holding the lightweight and featherweight titles. But the brothers, who both represent Brazil proudly hope that Bellator’s international fights, Italy, Ireland and Japan to name a few, could eventually lead to an event in their home country.

“It’s something that I’ve been looking forward [to] for a long time, and I kind of actually lost hope a little bit of it happening because we’ve heard so many times that Bellator would come back [and] it still didn’t happen,” Freire said. “It would be great to have a show of Bellator here, especially in our city to have our opponents here, the crowd in our favor, our friends rooting for us. It will create a kind of an atmosphere that our opponents have never seen before. So, we would love to see Bellator here. We would love to have that opportunity and hopefully, it can happen in the near future.”

If Freire wins the tournament finals, and his brother wins the Bellator featherweight tournament it could have huge implications on how Bellator will market the Pitbull brothers going forward.

“It’s a great moment and a little bit more special for me,” he said of his brother’s accomplishments. “My fights are coming up, and next fights in March and there is a long way until his tournament ends, but for sure it means a lot for both of us to be fighting and winning tournaments. I will be winning the title for Rizin in Japan, and he will win in Bellator. So it would be huge for both of us, for our coaches and ourselves to be in such a bright moment in our careers for sure.”

Rizin 20 takes place at the Saitama Super Arena in Saitama, Japan. The event starts at 1 a.m. ET on Tuesday, Dec. 31, 2019.