It’s back to the drawing board for Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire.

The long-time Bellator veteran and former two-division champion came up short in his UFC debut in Miami, Florida last weekend, losing a clear-cut three round decision to former 145-pound title challenger Yair Rodriguez.

It was an uncharacteristically slow performance from the Brazilian fighter, who entered the cage with a stellar record of 24 finishes in his 36-win career — something which he attributed to an unfamiliarity with three-round fights which he told MMA Fighting led to him starting the contest a low slower than he would have ideally liked.

“Maybe for spending many years fighting in five-round fights, I don’t know if my sense of urgency took too long to activate,” he said.

“It was my mistake not to start with the foot on the gas, but it’s understandable because that could have led to a mistake. I don’t like to make mistakes. I like to hit the target when I fire. In general, I could have done more, went for war, hunted him, but it’s too late to say. We could have done better.”

Pitbull added that he recognised that the defeat to Rodriguez puts a halt for now to his title ambitions in the UFC but indicated on social media that a bout with Dan Ige could be a solid next step.

“I told the UFC to surprise me,” he said. “I wanted to debut with the right foot. Had I beat Yair Rodriguez, I’d definitely be in the top 5 now and people would be asking me about possibly being next for the belt. Now I have to look at the top 15. It’s a bit frustrating, but I understand that’s what needs to happen now.”