Bellator 280: Pedro Carvalho Feels Like He’s Himself Again After “Worst Time in My Career”

Featherweight Pedro Carvalho returns to the Bellator cage this Friday in Paris, riding the momentum of a key win against Daniel Weichel at Bellator 270 last November.

That win snapped a two-fight skid, and though he’s always been confident, Carvalho (12-5) was well aware that he was in need of a victory.

“I always bring 100% positivity to all of my fights. That’s me, that’s always been me all my entire life,” the SBG Ireland fighter, originally from Portugal, told media outlets including Cageside Press during the Bellator 280 media day this week. “I’ve always been confident and positive about everything in my life overall.”

While Poland’s Piotr Niedzielski meets Carvalho in Paris this Friday, it’s the Weichel fight he reflected on earlier this week.

“In regards to the Weichel fight, I see it as a different stage kind of thing. I needed a fight, I needed a win.” Carvalho has said many times that he was going through “the worst time in my career” following back-to-back losses against Patricio Pitbull and Jay Jay Wilson, “and I needed to overcome it, to show everyone and especially to show myself how capable I am.”

That, he added, is why he didn’t look for an easy opponent. Instead, “I looked for one of the toughest in the division.”

After picking up a much needed win over Weichel, winning via unanimous decision, Carvalho feels like he “shook everything off,” and believes he’s now back again. “I can be me again. Because of course, I had a ton of pressure going into that fight for not only the opponent I had, but the moment itself. I needed to win, it was like a must-win situation for me. Now, I’m free from that. I know I can go out there, perform, I can focus on my skill set, and I know that I’m going out there and putting on my best performance so far.”

Pedro Carvalho faces Piotr Niedzielski at Bellator 280 in Paris, France, this Friday, May 6, 2022, on Showtime. Watch the rest of Carvalho’s media day interview above. More coverage can be found below.