AJ McKee goals

[tehMoose]

I just watched a 40 min interview with him after his win over Pitbull. He said:

- He wants to bring Snickers and Porsche as sponsors to Bellator
- To box Canelo & GGG on Showtime
- To spar Floyd (exhibition)
- To fight Pitbull at 155, wants to become double champ and would take a boxing fight while Pitbull is taking time off
- He was 165 lbs on fight night against Pitbull
- Khabib's camp already said they are coming after him (Usman)
- Khabib is not the coach of the year. Antonio McKee is
- Was not too interested about the UFC questions, he said "I'm not in a rush".
- People are recognizing him everywhere
- He wants to help Bellator grow
- It sounded like moving to CBS is already a done deal. But who knows?

It seems like he's the perfect man for Bellator to take it to the next level.

Should they rush Usman a bit? I think a fight against #3 Bendo in Moscow is winnable for him but I'm not sure Khabib's camp would want that. They are taking the things slowly with all their fighters.

Also I have a question. How many fights left Holloway has on his contract? He's not the champ there and when he becomes free agent I think they would throw some serious $ at him to try to bring him over. That's McKee's dream fight

 

[SokoudjouFanboy]

Link to the interview?

 

[Sweater of AV]

Lots of interesting options for McKee. Looking forward to seeing how things pan out for him.

 

[careto]

I just watched a 40 min interview with him after his win over Pitbull. He said:

- He wants to bring Snickers and Porsche as sponsors to Bellator
- To box Canelo & GGG on Showtime
- To spar Floyd (exhibition)
- To fight Pitbull at 155, wants to become double champ and would take a boxing fight while Pitbull is taking time off
- He was 165 lbs on fight night against Pitbull
- Khabib's camp already said they are coming after him (Usman)
- Khabib is not the coach of the year. Antonio McKee is
- Was not too interested about the UFC questions, he said "I'm not in a rush".
- People are recognizing him everywhere
- He wants to help Bellator grow
- It sounded like moving to CBS is already a done deal. But who knows?

It seems like he's the perfect man for Bellator to take it to the next level.

Should they rush Usman a bit? I think a fight against #3 Bendo in Moscow is winnable for him but I'm not sure Khabib's camp would want that. They are taking the things slowly with all their fighters.

Also I have a question. How many fights left Holloway has on his contract? He's not the champ there and when he becomes free agent I think they would throw some serious $ at him to try to bring him over. That's McKee's dream fight

Thanks for the summary. The kid is a superstar in the making. If Bellator play their cards right, they could tie him up for a long time with some boxing matches and CBS cards. I assume Bellator would be very interested in signing Max but IDK if Max would be willing to leave. He is not one of those fighters that seem unhappy with the UFC, but I guess money talks. AJ vs Max in either Hawaii or LA would be amazing.

 

[Dillydilly]

This the video @tehMoose ?

 

[tehMoose]

This the video @tehMoose ?

Yes and I watched one more. But 90% of the stuff I wrote are from this one

@SokoudjouFanboy

 

[CorninginChristianburg]

Right now Max already makes a lot of money and the UFC would be willing to match up to a certain percentage over the current contract, the minimum that it would take to move him would be half a million per fight and frankly, Bellator doesn't pay anyone like that. Pitbull got 250k/AJ got 150 base salary for the last fight. Max is not coming over.

 

[careto]

Right now Max already makes a lot of money and the UFC would be willing to match up to a certain percentage over the current contract, the minimum that it would take to move him would be half a million per fight and frankly, Bellator doesn't pay anyone like that. Pitbull got 250k/AJ got 150 base salary for the last fight. Max is not coming over.

Yes, I think Max makes 400k flat fee, that is a lot of money for Bellator. The only leverage I can see for Bellator is the sponsorship money from potential CBS fights but I dont think that would be enough to convince Max. The other leverage could be potential boxing matches in Showtime Boxing but I just dont see anyone from Showtime Boxing that would make a big fight vs Max. Maybe Gervonta Davis but that would be a massacre.

 

[careto]

Canelo & GGG are huge 161+ pound boxers, they would murder AJ in a boxing match. Plus, AJ is not that big of a name, at least not yet. Pacquiao would be around his weight class, though. But then again, AJ doesnt have the name recognition yet.

 

[JustOnce]

I just watched a 40 min interview with him after his win over Pitbull. He said:

- He wants to bring Snickers and Porsche as sponsors to Bellator
- To box Canelo & GGG on Showtime
- To spar Floyd (exhibition)
- To fight Pitbull at 155, wants to become double champ and would take a boxing fight while Pitbull is taking time off
- He was 165 lbs on fight night against Pitbull
- Khabib's camp already said they are coming after him (Usman)
- Khabib is not the coach of the year. Antonio McKee is
- Was not too interested about the UFC questions, he said "I'm not in a rush".
- People are recognizing him everywhere
- He wants to help Bellator grow
- It sounded like moving to CBS is already a done deal. But who knows?

It seems like he's the perfect man for Bellator to take it to the next level.

Should they rush Usman a bit? I think a fight against #3 Bendo in Moscow is winnable for him but I'm not sure Khabib's camp would want that. They are taking the things slowly with all their fighters.

Also I have a question. How many fights left Holloway has on his contract? He's not the champ there and when he becomes free agent I think they would throw some serious $ at him to try to bring him over. That's McKee's dream fight

I think if Bellator brought Pico up like they did with McKee, I think Pico would have been a better fighter.

I don't know if anyone can recover from those vicious finishes that Pico suffered early in his career.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

AJ doesn't really strike me as a particularly amazing boxer even by MMA standards, I don't think that's the strength of his game really.

I don't think there's any chance of signing Max unless he loses multiple fights at which point it's pointless anyway. He's one of their favourites.

 

[GueseGuy]

Nice cliffs bro. Yes AJ is the biggest homegrown star that Bellator has ever had. He’s already at 100k followers on IG. The sky is the limit for him. I think the next logical step is CBS but he needs to keep winning obviously.

 

[Mentallooser]

If SHOWTIME can be creative, then Bellator will be your best option for a long time

 

[SokoudjouFanboy]

The only chance they might have of getting someone ala Max or Ortega away would be if some suits at Viacom realize they have lightning in a bottle and decide to invest more money into the brand by throwing stupid money at one or both.

No earthly idea if that'll ever happen but it's a vulnerable time for the UFC and WME right now. Not in terms of popularity, it's as good as ever but the fact is they're trying to cut costs and stay as lean as they can. If Bellator/Viacom decide the only way their golden boy sticks around is throwing a bunch of cash at him and a couple elite guys for him to fight they might be able to make noise. But they need to re-invest back into the brand to get it to take the next step.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

The only chance they might have of getting someone ala Max or Ortega away would be if some suits at Viacom realize they have lightning in a bottle and decide to invest more money into the brand by throwing stupid money at one or both.

No earthly idea if that'll ever happen but it's a vulnerable time for the UFC and WME right now. Not in terms of popularity, it's as good as ever but the fact is they're trying to cut costs and stay as lean as they can. If Bellator/Viacom decide the only way their golden boy sticks around is throwing a bunch of cash at him and a couple elite guys for him to fight they might be able to make noise. But they need to re-invest back into the brand to get it to take the next step.

That's usually the point where these organisations start to over reach and start losing money. If you can become an established #2 with a solid fanbase it's not a bad position to be in.

 

[SokoudjouFanboy]

That's usually the point where these organisations start to over reach and start losing money. If you can become an established #2 with a solid fanbase it's not a bad position to be in.

Totally, but past isn't necessarily prologue with these types of things. If they can be smarter then some other cautionary tales from the past it might still work. The Bellator brand has been around for a decade now, it's a profitable business (or at least was for sure) so it might be good timing for a strategic surge of cash to try to lure established top fighters away. No idea, just speculating.

 

[careto]

The only chance they might have of getting someone ala Max or Ortega away would be if some suits at Viacom realize they have lightning in a bottle and decide to invest more money into the brand by throwing stupid money at one or both.

No earthly idea if that'll ever happen but it's a vulnerable time for the UFC and WME right now. Not in terms of popularity, it's as good as ever but the fact is they're trying to cut costs and stay as lean as they can. If Bellator/Viacom decide the only way their golden boy sticks around is throwing a bunch of cash at him and a couple elite guys for him to fight they might be able to make noise. But they need to re-invest back into the brand to get it to take the next step.

This, but I doubt they will want to throw more money at Bellator. They are already throwing more money at PBC to bring more boxing, I doubt they will spend even more on MMA.

I've always thought the solution would be for someone with deep pockets to own half of Bellator and spend some money on big name fighters, whereas VIACOM would spend money on promoting and putting events on CBS. IMO, the brand would grow exponentialy if they could sign a couple of big names (Nate has only one fight in his contract and wants to box, btw) and put them in CBS, along with AJ.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

Totally, but past isn't necessarily prologue with these types of things. If they can be smarter then some other cautionary tales from the past it might still work. The Bellator brand has been around for a decade now, it's a profitable business (or at least was for sure) so it might be good timing for a strategic surge of cash to try to lure established top fighters away. No idea, just speculating.

Realistically it's never going to usurp the UFC. I'm not sure what their financials are like this year but AFAIK a lot of the reason they ran in the black for a couple of years was due to the DAZN deal. It's basically now a content filler for Showtime and as they're kind of paying themselves for it in a sense it depends on how much money they want to lose on it.

 

[careto]

That's usually the point where these organisations start to over reach and start losing money. If you can become an established #2 with a solid fanbase it's not a bad position to be in.

This should be their short term goal.

 

[Hellowhosthat]

This should be their short term goal.

I'd argue it's also a reasonable long term goal. If you can maintain a steady audience of say 300k people then you can run a solid and profitable organisation.