Ex-champ Brent Primus practicing title patience heading into Bellator 240

Former Bellator lightweight champion Brent Primus knows he has to continue to impress in his quest for another title shot and says he’s ready to unleash a previously unseen submission in the main event of Bellator 240.

Primus (9-1 MMA, 7-1 BMMA), who fights Chris Bungard on Saturday in Dublin, was all set to face Irish fan favorite and rising contender Peter Queally, but when the Irishman suffered a knee injury, he was replaced by Scotland’s Bungard (15-5 MMA, 2-1 BMMA).

Primus is happy to still be on the card and intends to deliver the best performance possible to keep him in the hunt for a shot at the lightweight title when two-division champion Patricio Freire eventually returns to 155 pounds.

“Yeah, it sucks for sure, man,” Primus told MMA Junkie during media day in Dublin. “I was looking forward to fighting Peter, but it is what it is, and I’m glad Chris took the fight. I obviously want to fight Patricio. I know I can beat him, and he’s on my radar. He has that belt, but I’ll be happy to fight Benson (Henderson). I want to fight one of the top-ranked guys for sure. That’s what I want.”

Freire’s involvement in the Bellator featherweight grand prix has caused an issue with the promotion’s lightweight division, which has effectively been on hold while Freire focuses solely on the 145-pound tournament. It’s a source of frustration for Primus, who says he can do no more than just keep fighting and winning to ensure he’s in the right place when “Pitbull” eventually returns to the division.

“It sucks,” Primus said. “It puts not only me on hold, but the entire lightweight division, for him. At the same time, I’ve just gotta take one fight at a time and keep winning, and I know that title and the belt will come.”

One solution could be the introduction of an interim title, and Primus admitted he’d be open to the possibility of fighting for an interim belt to determine who should face “Pitbull,” but the American isn’t holding his breath.

“Yeah, I’ll take an interim belt, for sure,” he said. “I think that’d be cool. But I think I read an article where Scott Coker said he isn’t too interested in doing interim belts, but at the same time, man, the whole division is on hold right now waiting on Patricio. So I would definitely take an interim title fight if they did do that. But I have to just go out there and do my job and take one fight at a time.”

That next fight sees him take on Bungard, who has upset the form book before in his fighting career. But Primus says he holds all the aces, including a previously unseen submission that he thinks could rival his gogoplata finish of Tim Wilde at Bellator Europe 2 last May.

“I definitely have a couple of cool submissions that are rare,” Primus said. “I’ve got this one that I’ve been working on that I’ve been catching a lot of people in that nobody has ever done before in a fight. I know I could catch him in a crazy, cool submission, but at the same time I know I’m better than him in wrestling, in jiu-jitsu, in stand-up, so I know I can finish him. Seven out of my nine wins are first-round finishes, and I know I can finish this guy. I’m expecting nothing less.”

With a show-stopping submission or two in his arsenal, plus the desire to deliver a headline-making performance, Primus says he hopes he can produce another highlight-reel moment in front of the rowdy, passionate Irish fight fans.

“It’s going to be intense, I know it is. It’s going to be crazy,” he said. “It might be less intense now that I’m fighting somebody from Scotland rather than Peter, who I know had a humungous following here in Dublin. But I know it’s going to be crazy, man. There’s no fans quite like the Irish fans, and I’m excited to fight in a crazy atmosphere. It’s going to be nuts, and I can’t wait.”