INGLEWOOD – AJ McKee showed up at the Forum last week on styling and profiling. Coming out of a Maybach, the 26-year-old MMA prodigy walked the MMA prodigy, dressed in a blue Lakers Kobe Bryant jersey and Louis Vuitton shoes, a flashy watch on his wrist and a 20,000 piece of gold. $ which hangs around his neck.

In the background was a huge banner adorning one of the infamous red exterior walls of the famous Inglewood sports arena. On one side of the poster featured two-time Brazilian featherweight champion Patricio Pitbull, the undisputed king of the 145-pound and 155-pound Bellator divisions.

On the other, the undefeated local kid who made it through his wrestling days at Long Beach Poly to headlining Bellator 263 on Saturday night.

At stake in the Bellator Featherweight Grand Prix Final isn’t just Pitbull’s belt, but a super million dollars.

AJ McKee and his father, Antonio, started this journey over six years ago, with a 20-year-old AJ winning his submission debut at the Bren Events Center in Irvine and boldly barking the champion’s name – Patricio Pitbull , who was seven months into his first featherweight title reign.

And now McKee doesn’t know if Saturday’s pay-per-view headliner is the most important fight of his career, let alone the hallowed halls of the Forum.

“Being here last time, fighting on the map with my dad, was a big chunk. I’m still not sure if winning this world title will be more important than that for me, ”said the 17-0 McKee of the September 2019 card when he and his dad were each victorious at Bellator 228.

“But it’s neck and neck, man. I feel like it’s more of a vocation. This is what I have to do. That’s what you should do. ”

THE CALL

For Antonio McKee, filling two roles in his son’s life is no problem due to his ability to compartmentalize as a father and coach of AJ.

“When we’re at home, we don’t talk about fighting. At the gym, listen to me, respect me, I’m your trainer, ”said Antonio McKee.

AJ McKee was one of several local children who began wrestling at a young age under his father’s supervision in the family garage.

Antonio, however, says he didn’t push his son to struggle or fight.

“Pushing him to fight and wanting him to fight are two different things,” said Antonio McKee, 51. “I wanted him to take away from wrestling what you get: discipline, sacrifice, hard work and you have to be mentally prepared. These are all the basics of life.

As for pursuing a career in MMA, AJ McKee told his father, who coached former champions Rampage Jackson, Chuck Liddell and Tyron Woodley, that he was fighting one way or another – in the street or in the cage.

Antonio nodded. Not that he pampered his child.

“I said, ‘I’ll see you on Monday’ and made him throw up for a whole week in a row,” he said. “I tried to torture him so that he wouldn’t want to do it. Unfortunately, I am barking on the wrong tree. At that point, it was unfortunately, “OK, is this the road you want to take? This is the hard way. ‘ But then I built it on it. So what was I expecting?

AJ McKee has heard stories of his father’s difficult upbringing and 20-year career in MMA, from fighting for fringe organizations for peanuts from 1999 to getting a shot at the UFC – a unanimous loss to Jacob Volkmann at UFC 125 in 2011 – before being cut.

His respect runs deep for his father, a fighter in every sense of the word.

“He’s in my corner. My dad only wants the best for me, ”said AJ McKee. “I see that, him being a first generation fighter, fighting for $ 50, and me coming for $ 1,500. He sees how the sport is. So her eyes have always been open.

THE CLICK

The Bellator World Featherweight Grand Prix brought highs and – despite a perfect 3-0 run – lows for AJ McKee.

After his 8-second knockout of Georgi Karakhanyan at Bellator 228 – the same card in which his then 49-year-old father, fighting for the first time in nearly five years, recorded a second-round TKO of 47- William Sriyapai, One year old, – AJ McKee faced Derek Campos at Bellator 236 in December 2019 in Hawaii.

In the first round, AJ McKee attempted a spinning heel kick and awkwardly landed and fell. He fought the rest of the fight with a torn lateral collateral ligament in his left knee. He fought and subdued Campos via an armband in the third round.

That’s when everything clicked.

“It kinda showed me, man, it’s not guaranteed. In a split second, your whole career could be over, ”said AJ McKee, who hasn’t fought for 11 more months while recovering from surgery.

“He was sitting there screaming my name and no one was there in the bed crying because he couldn’t wipe (his butt),” his father said. “Family values ​​are starting to mean more. Real friends start to take responsibility for being real friends, and he saw how many there are. And it was easy after that.

AJ McKee returned to the cage in November, needing just over a minute to subdue former Bellator bantamweight champion Darrion Caldwell in the semifinals with a modified crank out of nowhere.

Which means he had eight months to prepare for Saturday’s final and almost four months to prepare his opponent. Pitbull (32-4) clinched his place in the final with a guillotine choke in the first round of Emmanuel Sanchez in April.

The 5-foot-10 McKee will have an 8-inch advantage over the 5-foot-6 Pitbull, who has won seven consecutive title fights and hasn’t lost in five years while often finding a way inside. against bigger opponents.

“He’s not going to understand the game standing up. He’s going to try to take me down, ”predicted Pitbull, 34. “He believes he has the advantage because he is longer. For me it is nothing.

Antonio McKee expresses his complete confidence in his son’s prospects on Saturday – “You match the strike, the range, the speed, the size, the strength, the youth. The only way he loses is to get cut, ”he said – but at the same time he admits to being nervous because this camp has gone so well.

“This is the first time that I can say I’ve seen my nervous dad,” said AJ McKee.

The call – and the Pitbull call – has been a long time coming.

“For me, that’s it. This has all been in the works, ”said AJ McKee. “I really don’t know what will come next, but what I look forward to is becoming world champion and sharing this moment with my dad.”

Bellator 263

Main event: Champion Patricio Pitbull vs. AJ McKee in Million Dollar Bellator Featherweight World Grand Prix Final

When: Saturday

Or: The Forum, Inglewood

How to watch: 4 p.m. preliminaries (Bellator and Showtime YouTube); 7 p.m. main card (Showtime)