HONOLULU – Raufeon Stots is glad that he no longer has to fight his teammate Sergio Pettis.

Stots was originally scheduled to face Roufusport training partner and bantamweight champion Pettis at Bellator 279, but Pettis ended up withdrawing from their opening round grand prix bout due to injury.

Instead, Stots (17-1 MMA, 5-0 BMMA) will now face Juan Archuleta (25-3 MMA, 7-2 BMMA) for the interim title Saturday at Neal S. Blaisdell Center in Honolulu which airs on Showtime following prelims on MMA Junkie.

“I’m super excited about this one,” Stots told MMA Junkie at a news conference Thursday. “For me personally, it’s way easier for me to get behind fighting Juan Archuleta than it was for me to get behind fighting Sergio. So I’m super excited to get in there and put my hands on Juan.

“I’m gutted for him (Pettis), that’s not the way I wanted it to go. I had finally wrapped my head around kind of fighting him, but I’m definitely relieved to not have to fight him and fight Juan.”

An interim title isn’t quite like an undisputed one, but Stots explains that beating Pettis (22-5 MMA, 4-0 BMMA) wouldn’t have felt good.

“Me fighting Sergio – Sergio is like my boy, so me fighting him and taking his belt was kind of like me stealing his girlfriend,” Stots said. “Even if I would have won, it would have left a bitter taste in my mouth, kind of. But here, it’s a whole other girl, this interim belt, so I can go out there and take that without any reservations.

“I’m happy to be the interim champ until Sergio gets back. That was my goal from the beginning. When Sergio was the champion, I was like, ‘Man, I want to just knock everybody off and then have to fight him, kind of be his bodyguard. But I’ll just hold on to the belt until he gets back.”