A.J. McKee has put a time stamp on his MMA career, and the PFL main event in San Diego comes with that clock already running. He said he expects to be done fighting at 35 unless the money gets abnormal. That leaves his current run at featherweight with a clear end point.
McKee’s four-year clock
“I’ve kind of put a time stamp on my career,” McKee said. He added, “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.”
That puts a hard number on a career that has already moved through several turns. McKee is 3-1 in PFL after a 21-1 run in Bellator, and he signed a new deal with PFL in late 2025. His next fight is Saturday against Salamat Isbulaev in PFL San Diego.
Featherweight back in focus
McKee said he returned to 145 pounds for a reason. “The reason why I went back to featherweight is because I missed being a champion,” he said. He also said, “Obviously I fell a little short at lightweight,” then added, “I wasn’t putting on that much weight to be a lightweight, but I think my skillset supersedes what people perceive and see.”
His recent results back up the move. He beat Akhmed Magomedov in July 2025 and won a decision over Adam Borics in March. The featherweight picture looks cleaner for him than the lightweight stretch did, where he lost a split decision to Paul Hughes in 2024 and absorbed his only MMA loss at featherweight in a 2022 rematch with Patricio Pitbull.
Racing after MMA
McKee also sketched out what comes after fighting, and it still points toward speed. “I kind of want to do something along the lines of racing, whether it’s a motorcycle, Indy car, Baja, something,” he said. “I’m gonna gotta go fast. I gotta have adrenaline in my life.”
He said he has already started there. “I’ve been in quite a few cars,” McKee said. “I actually just raced my first my first go-kart, like a shifter kart 100cc.” He also said his future away from fighting will still be tied to sports and adrenaline, which makes the next stretch straightforward: finish strong now, then move into the kind of racing he says he wants to chase once the cage no longer fits the plan.
The wrinkle is simple. McKee says he wants to leave on top, yet his San Diego main event is not for an inaugural PFL belt. If the money never reaches the level he described, the clock still runs toward 35. If it does, the timeline could bend.
