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’s why he opted to go back to 145 pounds after a short trip to lightweight, even though he’s already making plans for his post-fighting career.
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’t the case then, when he won a decision, and again it isn’t 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.
“I’ve kind of put a time stamp on my career,” McKee told MMA Fighting. “I’ve got another four years. I don’t want to be that guy that’s fighting at 40 years old because he needs to. Maybe if I wanted to, but I think at 35 I’m done. I want to go follow other dreams, other passions. I mean, if I’m making some abnormal amount of money, obviously… Money talks. Money would get me to do some things — not everything, but some things.”
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, “Mercenary” vows to “continuing to kick ass and take names.”
“I’ve had a couple setbacks in my life,” McKee said. “But it’s been nothing that can stop me or nothing that I haven’t 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.”
As for the “other passions” he has for his future away from fighting, it will still be related to sports and adrenaline. Again, no slowing down.
“I kind of want to do something along the lines of racing, whether it’s a motorcycle, Indy car, Baja, something,” McKee said. “I’m 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.”
“I’ve been in quite a few cars,” he continued. “I actually just raced my first my first go-kart, like a shifter kart 100cc. I mean, I didn’t race it. I had little kids spanking me around the track, and they were they were in like little 80cc, 75cc, and I’m 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].”
McKee’s return to his native California for a PFL headliner versus Isbulaev is more than a fight, he says. It’s a message to the entire 145-pound division.
“The reason why I went back to featherweight is because I missed being a champion,” 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.
“Obviously I fell a little short at lightweight,” he continued. “I wasn’t 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’ll go back up.”
Isbulaev will be McKee’s 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 “figuring out those patterns and being able to exploit those.”
“I think the key watching those previous tapes is [seeing] he gets a little tired,” McKee said. “His amateur career, those are three minute rounds, so nine-minute [fights] so you’re talking two rounds. He hasn’t made it out of the second round, which also shows me he’s used to fighting 10 minutes, not really 15 minutes. He hasn’t really fought those long-distance, high-pace fights. I’ve 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.
“A 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’t know, I’ve 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’t really think he’s 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.”
McKee is not expecting an easy victory, though.
“I’ve always had the mindset and I’ve always been told you’re only as good as your last fight,” McKee said. “His last fight was a stunning victory and that’s what I focus on. That shows me where he’s at, his most current skillset, what he’s capable of, what he’s doing. Again, that was another fight that went pretty fast. They didn’t really have any exchanges the whole first round and then he got that takedown and that was all she wrote. I don’t think this is going to be an easy fight, but I also don’t think he has the same amount of skills that I have. I’m not too worried about it.
“This is one of those fights where it’s a big risk, little reward, you know what mean? Where I’m supposed to win, he’s supposed to be the young up and undefeated guy. For me, it’s just going in there and doing what I do best, not worrying about anything that he’s doing and just focus on my game plan and kicking his ass, to be honest [laughs]. Drag him to deep waters and drown him.”
That’s 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’t sure what PFL has planned for the division.
“I don’t know what they’re gonna do,” McKee said. “At the end of the day, I just got to focus on who’s in front of me at the moment as Isbulaev is the man in front of me, so that’s kind of what I’m focused on. Everything else will fall into play. I don’t really focus or worry on about it too much.”
