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UNCASVILLE, Connecticut – Like many home viewers, Scott Coker was stunned by the unusual arrival of AJ McKee in the main event of the Bellator 253 on Thursday.
Against former Bellator bantamweight champion Darrion Caldwell, McKee (17-0 MMA, 17-0 BMMA) pulled off a rare, modified guard crank en route to a 71-second Grand Prix semi-final victory featherweight of the promotion.
“I’ve never seen a submission like this,” Coker told MMA Junkie at a post-fight press conference. “The new name is ‘McKee-otine?’ This is the first time for me. I have seen all the different cranks. It took me a second to figure it out.
“I said to John McCarthy afterwards, I said, ‘John, did you see it coming?’ He said, “I saw it coming. But I said to Josh Thomson, I said, ‘Josh did you see it coming? He said, “No, I haven’t seen it develop. It was a very clever move. It was a very, very smooth blow against a seasoned veteran of our long-fighting former champion. Hats off to McKee.
With the win, McKee remains undefeated and advances to the tournament final, where he will meet Bellator featherweight champion Patricio Freire and Emmanuel Sanchez in 2021.
Neither the remaining semi-final nor the following final match have tough dates yet, but the Bellator president has offered the rough schedule for the promotion.
“There’s a lot to do and I know everyone is going to ask me, so I might as well talk about it: the schedule,” Coker said. “Look, I want to finish this other fight (at) the end of January. At the end of March, we will try to start this fight. We will try to get the final.
Whenever Freire (31-4 MMA, 19-4 BMMA) and Sanchez (20-4 MMA, 12-3 BMMA) fight, it will be the second time they have faced each other. In November 2018, Friere defeated Sanchez by unanimous decision in a featherweight title defense.
McKee has completed his three tournament fights so far. After knocking out Georgi Karakhanyan in eight seconds in the first round of the tournament, McKee subdued Derek Campos to qualify for the game with Caldwell.
The Bellator 254 took place Thursday at the Mohegan Sun Arena. The main card aired on CBS Sports Network after preliminaries on MMA Junkie.
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