#AJ McKee wants respect for family entering Bellator 263

It never sat right with AJ McKee how little acclaim his father’s 20-year mixed martial arts career received.

The Bellator 263 headliner, who will face featherweight champion Patricio “Pitbull” Freire on Saturday at The Forum in Inglewood, Calif., in a fight that wraps up the pandemic-delayed Featherweight World Grand Prix with $1 million up for grabs, is out to put some respect on his family name.

“I never felt that my father [Antonio McKee] got the recognition or respect that he deserved in his career,” McKee recently told The Post over Zoom. “… So, me coming into my own career and just making sure that the last name gets the respect and recognition it deserves, that was a big key and a big part for me.”

The 26-year-old is well on his way to that goal. He’s 17-0 with 12 finishes, including five in his past six appearances. The latest came in the tournament semifinals last November, when McKee locked in one of the most heralded submissions of the year: a modified neck crank at 71 seconds of the first round against former Bellator bantamweight champ Darrion Caldwell that’s been dubbed the “McKee-otine.”

Antonio McKee knew a thing or two about unbeaten streaks during his fighting days. The elder McKee, now 51, went 11-0-1 from Aug. 10, 2003 until a split decision loss in his lone UFC appearance on Jan. 1, 2011. That unbeaten run is about 400 days longer than AJ’s entire professional career, which began on April 10, 2015.

But Antonio’s prime was spent largely toiling on the regional scene, as well as a 4-0 mark with former league-based promotion IFL that produced several future UFC notables. His was a grinding style of fighting that rarely led to finishes, a difficult style aesthetically when it came to winning over the knockout- and submission-hungry MMA fans of the post-”The Ultimate Fighter” boom. He finished his career in September 2019 with a TKO win — only his ninth finish in a 30-6-2 career — on the same Bellator card his son earned an eight-second KO over Georgi Karakhanyan.

The way AJ sees it, his father’s style isn’t so different from his own. But the younger McKee worked with his father to make tweaks to be more well-rounded and avoid needing the judges’ input to decide a winner. Mission accomplished, given his ever-growing highlight reel.

“Being able to take someone down and hold them down, I’m capable of doing that,” AJ said. “But I always want to give the fans what they want. They want a gory knockout. They want to see blood. They want to see something drastic happen in a fight.”

AJ McKee will square off against another opponent known for “drastic” happenings in the cage in Pitbull (32-4, 23 finishes), who also reigns as Bellator’s lightweight champion after beating recent UFC 155-pound title challenger Michael Chandler by TKO in 61 seconds two years ago. The dual champ is practically Mr. Bellator, having competed for the promotion dating back to April 2010, when it was built around its season tournaments. Those went out of fashion for a time before CEO Scott Coker reinstated them as grand prix events intended to last a year and focused on one weight class at a time. Pitbull last lost at 145 pounds the same year McKee debuted, dropping the championship before reclaiming it in April 2017. He’s since defended the belt successfully five times.

McKee’s entire career has taken place under the Bellator banner, and he says he’s been “anxious” to face Pitbull since the very beginning. However, his father and Coker were set on him taking a more natural, less-rushed career arc toward the top. 

But the grand prix revealed what McKee surely already believed about himself: He’s ready to challenge Pitbull at last and take both of his opponent’s belts in succession.

“He’s a great fighter. He’s held the reins since I first stepped in that cage,” McKee said. “He’s got multiple achievements and accolades that I look forward to conquering, becoming a champ-champ.”

Of course, the $1 million prize to the winner has some allure as well. Seven-figure paydays are rare in MMA, and McKee already has his eye on one way he would treat himself in addition to paying off his house and making investments.

“I’ve been looking at a Porsche,” McKee says with a smile. “That [911] GT2 RS has been calling my name for a while now.”