UFC 318 star offered Dana White a $1 million bet that he’d beat the UFC champ before losing debut to a contender

Patricio Pitbull was willing to put down $1 million for a cross-promotion clash with Alexander Volkanovski

In August 2020, Pitbull was a two-division Bellator champion amid his second featherweight reign and first at 155 pounds.

Having accumulated a 30-4 record at the time, he was widely regarded as the greatest fighter competing outside of the sport’s leading promotion. But Pitbull wanted to leave zero doubt.

Amid a back-and-forth over how he would stack up against his UFC counterpart, the still-reigning Alexander Volkanovski, Pitbull offered to stake $1 million in a bet with Dana White.

“Any way works fine for me. I’m sure if @danawhite and the @UFC are open to it @BellatorMMA will let me go there fight their champions,” Pitbull wrote on X. “I will even personally bet 1 million dollars with White that I win. How does that sound for an incentive?”

In a follow-up post, the Brazilian urged White and the UFC to, “Put your money where your mouth is.”

Patricio Pitbull lost his UFC debut almost 5 years after his bet proposal

Unsurprisingly, given the UFC’s long-known reluctance to entertain talk of cross-promotion events, Pitbull’s offer fell on deaf ears among White and co. despite Volkanovski’s positive response.

But the MMA legend eventually got his chance to prove himself right when he finally put pen to paper on a deal with the UFC earlier this year.

Unfortunately for the Brazilian, he was unable to make an immediate impact. Instead, Yair Rodriguez beat Pitbull at UFC 314 to play spoiler and stall the Bellator great’s plan for a quick rise to a title shot.

At 38 years of age, it’s now crucial that Pitbull bounces back by defeating Ige at UFC 318 if he is to keep any hope of booking a long-discussed showdown with Volkanovski and becoming a UFC champion alive.