Bellator star McKee to face Pitbull in Tokyo
Bellator MMA is returning to the Land of the Rising Sun and bringing back one of its brightest stars.
Long Beach's A.J. McKee will return to Tokyo to take on former lightweight champion Patricky Pitbull in a Bellator Lightweight World Grand Prix Quarterfinal on July 30 in Saitama Super Arena.
The cross-promotional Bellator MMA X Rizin 2 card will feature several fights in the Bellator cage, followed by Rizin fights in the ring.
McKee, 28, is coming off a unanimous-decision victory over Rizin champion Roberto Satoshi de Souza on New Year's Eve in his Tokyo debut. Before that was the former featherweight champion's 155-pound debut in a dominant, unanimous-decision thrashing of Spike Carlyle at Bellator 286 on Oct. 1 at the Long Beach Arena.
The bout with Pitbull (2411) has been a long time coming since McKee (20-1) moved up to lightweight after splitting a pair of contests with his younger brother, Patricio Pitbull.
The Long Beach Poly High grad won the $1 million Featherweight World Grand Prix with a first-round technical submission dethroning of 145-pound champion Patricio Pitbull at Bellator 263 on July 31, 2021, at The Forum in Inglewood. Less than 10 months later, Patricio Pitbull reclaimed the belt with a unanimous-decision victory over McKee, who lost for the first time at Bellator 277 on April 15, 2022, in San Jose.
Patricky Pitbull, 37, has lost three of his past four fights, the last when he lost his title via unanimous decision to Usman Nurmagomedov at Bellator 288 in November in Chicago.
The winner of July's quarterfinal bout will take on Alexander Shabliy (23-3) — who defeated Tofiq Musayev via TKO due to a third-round body kick at Bellator 292 in March in San Jose — in the semifinals of the $1 million tournament.
Bellator MMA X Rizin 2 will also feature the inaugural Bellator flyweight championship bout between former Bellator and Rizin champion Kyoji Horiguchi (31-5) and Makoto “Shinryu” Takahashi (16-1-1).
Another scheduled Bellator bout pits flyweight Kana Watanabe (11-2-1) against Veta Arteaga (7-5).
Also appearing on the card in the Rizin ring will be former Bellator bantamweight champion Juan Archuleta (28-4) and Musayev (20-5).