Bellator
Bellator Champ Pat Curran suffers broken orbital bone, out of August 24 bout with Patricio Freire
Aug 14, 2012 - 10:00:00 PM Bellator Champ Pat Curran suffers broken orbital bone, out of August 24 bout with Patricio Freire

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By: Jamie Penick, MMATorch Editor-in-Chief

In massively disappointing information, Bellator's scheduled Featherweight Championship bout next week between Pat Curran and Patricio "Pitbull" Freire is off, as Curran has suffered an injury in his final week of training.

Curran announced via twitter that he has suffered a broken orbital bone, an injury that happened in his second to last sparring session before next week's event on MTV2. He is out of training for at least six weeks.

"It's an incredibly frustrating injury, especially to happen so close to the fight, but these things happen," Curran said in an interview with ESPN.com about the injury. "I can honestly say I'm in the best shape of my life, but injuries happen and once I heal up, I'm going to continue to train and come back stronger than ever to defend the Bellator Featherweight Title."

Curran captured the title this spring, knocking out Joe Warren in vicious fashion. He actually leapfrogged Freire to his title shot, as Freire won an earlier Bellator tournament, but was himself out injured. With this fight now delayed, Curran will have both Freire and last season's tournament winner Daniel Straus awaiting his return.

"First and foremost I feel horrible for Pat, he's been looking forward to this fight pitting two of the best 145 pounds in the world against each other for months," Bellator CEO Bjorn Rebney said. "Pat always elevates his game as the stakes get higher and higher. Right now the focus is Pat healing and getting back to 100 percent and we will get that fight rescheduled as quickly as Pat's health will allow us to."

Penick's Analysis: This is really unfortunate news for Curran, for Freire, for Bellator, and for the fans. This was going to be a fantastic matchup for Bellator's Featherweight Title, and it was their headlining fight for an event that is a week and a half away. It also backs up their featherweight division further once again, with Freire and Straus waiting in the wings and another tournament in the division likely to start by January, if not this fall. It's been one of their most competitive fields, and this just really puts things on hold. Hopefully Curran heals up quickly and can be back to 100% for the fall/winter months, as every Bellator fan wants to see this fight.