Five years after having the Bellator featherweight belt wrapped around his waist, A.J. McKee wants to win another gold belt in the PFL. That\u2019s why he opted to go back to 145 pounds after a short trip to lightweight, even though he\u2019s already making plans for his post-fighting career.<\/p>\n
McKee beat Akhmed Magomedov in July 2025 and hoped that his clash with Adam Borics this past March would be for the inaugural PFL belt. It wasn\u2019t the case then, when he won a decision, and again it isn\u2019t up for grabs for his PFL San Diego main event clash with undefeated prospect Salamat Isbulaev on Saturday. At 31, and having just signed a new deal with PFL in late 2025, McKee reveals he could be entering the final years of his MMA career.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve kind of put a time stamp on my career,\u201d McKee told MMA Fighting. \u201cI\u2019ve got another four years. I don\u2019t want to be that guy that\u2019s fighting at 40 years old because he needs to. Maybe if I wanted to, but I think at 35 I\u2019m done. I want to go follow other dreams, other passions. I mean, if I\u2019m making some abnormal amount of money, obviously\u2026 Money talks. Money would get me to do some things \u2014 not everything, but some things.\u201d<\/p>\n
At 3-1 in PFL, after a very successful 21-1 run in Bellator, McKee has no plans slowing down for as long the gloves are on. Instead, \u201cMercenary\u201d vows to \u201ccontinuing to kick ass and take names.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201dI\u2019ve had a couple setbacks in my life,\u201d McKee said. \u201cBut it\u2019s been nothing that can stop me or nothing that I haven\u2019t been able to turn around and go full force in working even harder and diligently at. I put a cap on it because I came in on the top and I want to leave on the top. The best way to do that is put a time cap and finish it to the best of your ability.\u201d<\/p>\n
As for the \u201cother passions\u201d he has for his future away from fighting, it will still be related to sports and adrenaline. Again, no slowing down.<\/p>\n
\u201cI kind of want to do something along the lines of racing, whether it\u2019s a motorcycle, Indy car, Baja, something,\u201d McKee said. \u201cI\u2019m gonna gotta go fast. I gotta have adrenaline in my life. Hopefully, I get into the race scene a little bit. I got a bunch of souped up cars, but those are all drag cars. Maybe something with a little bit more circuit, potential.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been in quite a few cars,\u201d he continued. \u201cI actually just raced my first my first go-kart, like a shifter kart 100cc. I mean, I didn\u2019t race it. I had little kids spanking me around the track, and they were they were in like little 80cc, 75cc, and I\u2019m at 100, so I was able to catch him. But the point is my first time on the track, I did good, you know? Only spun out a few times. Did pretty good, though [laughs].\u201d<\/p>\n
McKee\u2019s return to his native California for a PFL headliner versus Isbulaev is more than a fight, he says. It\u2019s a message to the entire 145-pound division.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe reason why I went back to featherweight is because I missed being a champion,\u201d said McKee, who has only lost once as a featherweight in MMA, a rematch with Patricio Pitbull in 2022. The other loss on his record came in a lightweight bout with Paul Hughes in 2024, when he was defeated via split decision.<\/p>\n
\u201cObviously I fell a little short at lightweight,\u201d he continued. \u201cI wasn\u2019t putting on that much weight to be a lightweight, but I think my skillset supersedes what people perceive and see. Locking in and going back to 145 pounds and just reminding everyone who the best in the world is. I think for the right fight, of course, I\u2019ll go back up.\u201d<\/p>\n
Isbulaev will be McKee\u2019s first undefeated opponent in a decade, and he enters the cage off of a first-round knockout against former PFL season winner Jesus Pinedo. The 29-year-old Russian went 10-0 so far as a professional after building a 29-3 record as an amateur, and McKee went back to watch tapes and \u201cfiguring out those patterns and being able to exploit those.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the key watching those previous tapes is [seeing] he gets a little tired,\u201d McKee said. \u201cHis amateur career, those are three minute rounds, so nine-minute [fights] so you\u2019re talking two rounds. He hasn\u2019t made it out of the second round, which also shows me he\u2019s used to fighting 10 minutes, not really 15 minutes. He hasn\u2019t really fought those long-distance, high-pace fights. I\u2019ve seen him kind of gas in the first round sometimes, so keeping the high-pace fight and just taking him to deep waters is going to be a key for this fight.<\/p>\n
\u201cA lot of his fights were amateur, so I feel like the pro circuit is a little different and just being able to fight those five minute rounds consistent is a big game game-changer. I don\u2019t know, I\u2019ve had almost triple the amounts of pro fights as him, so I think the experience level is going to be a big difference, being aware, being attentive. And as far as the skill set, no, I don\u2019t really think he\u2019s fought anybody with my skillset. The one guy he did fight that kind of scrambled really well with him and out wrestled him was his one loss in amateur.\u201d<\/p>\n
McKee is not expecting an easy victory, though.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve always had the mindset and I\u2019ve always been told you\u2019re only as good as your last fight,\u201d McKee said. \u201cHis last fight was a stunning victory and that\u2019s what I focus on. That shows me where he\u2019s at, his most current skillset, what he\u2019s capable of, what he\u2019s doing. Again, that was another fight that went pretty fast. They didn\u2019t really have any exchanges the whole first round and then he got that takedown and that was all she wrote. I don\u2019t think this is going to be an easy fight, but I also don\u2019t think he has the same amount of skills that I have. I\u2019m not too worried about it.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is one of those fights where it\u2019s a big risk, little reward, you know what mean? Where I\u2019m supposed to win, he\u2019s supposed to be the young up and undefeated guy. For me, it\u2019s just going in there and doing what I do best, not worrying about anything that he\u2019s doing and just focus on my game plan and kicking his ass, to be honest [laughs]. Drag him to deep waters and drown him.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s also part of why McKee wanted this to be a title fight, so he could get Isbulaev to championship rounds and see if he has what it takes to be a champion. McKee hopes the belt comes sooner rather than later, but just isn\u2019t sure what PFL has planned for the division.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t know what they\u2019re gonna do,\u201d McKee said. \u201cAt the end of the day, I just got to focus on who\u2019s in front of me at the moment as Isbulaev is the man in front of me, so that\u2019s kind of what I\u2019m focused on. Everything else will fall into play. I don\u2019t really focus or worry on about it too much.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Five years after having the Bellator featherweight belt wrapped around his waist, A.J. McKee wants to win another…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":763947,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,5963,7613,85],"class_list":["post-763946","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-pfl","tag-pfl-news","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763946","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=763946"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/763946\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/763947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=763946"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=763946"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=763946"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}