Sherdog’s Top 10: Greatest Bellator MMA Fighters

5. A.J. McKee

While only 27 years old, McKee already has the second-most Bellator wins ever, as he has fought his entire career in the promotion, with an exceptional mark of 19-1. He also made an appearance on Sherdog's list of 10 greatest featherweights, though he was significantly underrated at just 10th. McKee may be the most naturally gifted MMA fighter I've ever seen, with Jon Jones in his prime being the only similar comparison. Throughout his career, McKee has matched and even exceeded the hype. He began his career a perfect 18-0 in Bellator’s featherweight division, dazzling fans with his superlative, lightning-fast striking and submission skills. He easily dominated former featherweight champion Pat Curran, needed all of eight seconds to finish tough, skilled perennial contender Georgi Karakhanyan, submitted Derek Campos, recorded Sherdog's Submission of the Year for 2020 against former bantamweight champion and elite wrestler Darrion Caldwell, then shocked everyone when he faced the legendary Patricio Freire, whom we will see later in this list. McKee scored with a sensational head kick and then pounced with an instant, tight guillotine that resembled a steel trap, winning the title in just under two minutes. A lot of people considered McKee one of the very best pound-for-pound talents in the entire sport, but in a rematch against Freire, McKee lost a close five-round decision, the first defeat of his already great career. As I noted at the time, there are two ways to view this. One is that he didn't take the fight as seriously as he could have, and often looked sloppy looking for an opening for a spectacular knockout that never came. Another is that despite being off his game, McKee barely lost a decision to one of the greatest fighters in MMA, who executed one of the most brilliant, well-disciplined game plans in championship fight history that night. An all-time legend in Freire had to walk a tightrope for 25 minutes to barely edge him out. McKee is just that disgustingly talented. McKee's time at featherweight may have come to an end, as he recently debuted at lightweight to defeat the toughest fighter in modern MMA history, Spike Carlyle, via one-sided beating. However, his legend in Bellator will likely only grow, especially if he captures the lightweight title from current, undefeated champion Usman Nurmagomedov.

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