Patricky Freire made his Bellator MMA debut with a third-round technical knockout of former World Extreme Cagefighting titleholder “Razor” Rob McCullough on March 12, 2011. More than a decade later, the Brazilian slugger captured Bellator’s vacant lightweight championship and completed his climb to the top of its 155-pound mountain. A lesser man might have bailed on the journey.

“Thinking about it, I do have a long history within the organization,” Freire told Sherdog.com. “It’s a cool history, looking at each step taken. I had my highs and lows, but I carry on with strength. I won’t stop anytime soon. I still have lot of hunger and willpower. I can beat many more people in our weight class.”

Freire’s staying power will be put to the test when he defends his lightweight crown against the undefeated Usman Nurmagomedov in the Bellator 288 headliner on Friday at Wintrust Arena in Chicago. Nurmagomedov, 24, enters the cage with a perfect 15-0 record that includes a 4-0 mark in Bellator. The American Kickboxing Academy rep last appeared at Bellator 283, where he submitted Christopher Gonzalez with a rear-naked choke in the first round of their July 22 encounter. Freire questions the strength of his counterpart’s resume.

“Usman comes from a great wrestling and MMA school,” he said. “He’s undefeated, although, as I learned some time ago, his career was made easier along the way. I heard that when he was supposed to face Bruno Machado—someone with whom I trained for years in Rio de Janeiro—in Dubai, his team felt it was too big a risk for him because it would have made it harder for him to get into a bigger promotion if he lost. Now, we’ll see how he’ll do.

“He has never fought a Top 5 or even a Top 10 fighter—someone who’s battle-tested and experienced,” Freire added. “Let’s see how he behaves. He’s young and strong. I’m sure he’s very well-trained, especially in wrestling, but I’m used to that. I’m experienced. I’ll count on my experience and on my willingness to get a knockout. It will be a war, no doubt, but I’ll be ready for that.”

The champion has his own set of questions to answer, most of them surrounding inactivity. Freire has not fought since he struck lightweight gold with a second-round technical knockout of Peter Queally at Bellator 270 a little more than a year ago. Now fully recovered from hip and groin injuries that scuttled a scheduled title defense against Sidney Outlaw in July, “Pitbull” holds out hope for a healthy conclusion to his 2022 campaign and a more active schedule moving forward.

“I think an average of two fights per year would be ideal to defend my belt,” Freire said. “I’ll defend as much as I can for as long as I can. Everyone knows that it’s very difficult to remain champion, but that’s my goal. I worked for a long time to become champion. Now that I accomplished [that goal], I want to keep it for some time and defend as much as possible.”