An ecstatic AJ McKee after his win over Patricio Pitbull
Bellator featherweight champion A.J.McKee wasn’t impressed with UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski’s performance at UFC 273 against The Korean Zombie
Bellator 277 will feature a featherweight title rematch between A.J. McKee and Patricio ‘Pitbull’ Freire. Pitbull had lost his featherweight belt to McKee at Bellator 263 due to a guillotine choke in the very first round. The rematch is scheduled to be held on the 15th of April.
Ahead of the scheduled rematch, both fighters along with President Scott Coker spoke to the media about their upcoming event. `When asked about the past weekend’s UFC 273 main event between Alexander Volkanovski and Korean Zombie, McKee said
‘I wasn’t too impressed. Honestly I feel myself and Pitbull can hang with any 45er in the world. You know, that’s no discredit to any other featherweight in the world. But I strongly believe that Bellator has the best 145 lbs. division in the world. I got a million dollars to back it, I know he’s [Pitbull] has got his own money to back it. Scott’s got a nice cheque to back it. ”
He even opened up to the idea of a cross-promotion fight, which was in the same stretch backed by his president Scott Coker. He said,
” I would love to do a cross-promotion fight. Yeah the Volkanovski fight, my fight IQ is just a bit different. He’s real heavy on his back foot and keeps it sideways, which means that he only has vertical movements, when he strikes. So his lateral movement is obsolete. ”
Coker later said, ”Please call them and send them over, we are happy to fight them anytime.”
Alexander Volkanovski reminded the world that there are levels to this game, and he is truly among the elite in the UFC roaster. In what was a one-sided effort, Volkanovski shut down any threat from the Zombie, and was hitting him at will with whatever weapon he fancied. In the end referee Herb Dean had seen enough of accumulated damage and called an end to the fight, even through Zombie showed the heart of a warrior.
This victory puts the Aussie in an elite category of UFC fighters, becoming one of the only five fighters to start their UFC career at 11-0 or better. Volkanovski joins the likes of MMA royalty Anderson Silva, Khabib Nurmagomeodov, Royce Gracie and Kamaru Usman in this prestigious list.
Volkanovski currently has two victories over the former champion Max Holloway, and has beaten top contenders like Brian Ortega and Korean Zombie. While it will still take some more time for contenders like Calvin Kattar, Yair Rodriguez and Giga Chikadze to emerge as one worthy contender, Max Holloway is the only viable option left for the ‘Volk’ and the UFC.
While both of their previous fights were razor-thin contests, a strong margin from the MMA community believe that Max Holloway won the second fight. A trilogy looks destined at this point since both fighters were originally scheduled to fight on the UFC 273 card.
Another option that might present itself is a fight against former double champion Henry Cejudo, Cejudo even reacted to the main event at UFC 273 and expressed his desire to fight Alexander Volkanovksi and even claimed that he foresees a submission victory for him.
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