A.J. McKee was 12 years previous and in love with preventing. He’d tag alongside together with his father, Antonio, to the health club and watch him spar with legendary MMA stars similar to Randy Couture, Chuck Liddell, Rampage Jackson and Tito Ortiz.

Most of the time, regardless of being considerably smaller, Antonio acquired the higher of these legends, A.J. stated.

There was little doubt what A.J. deliberate to do together with his life. He went to school briefly to pursue wrestling, however he dropped out as a result of all he needed to do was to battle.

When he was 12, he wrote himself a verify for $1 million. He misspelled million, he says now, chuckling, however it’s proof of the way in which he thought even at an early age.

“I can’t even bear in mind how I spelled it, but it surely was means flawed,” McKee informed Yahoo Sports activities. “My Dad nonetheless has it. It was one thing I used to be fascinated about, having one million {dollars}. Me being a businessman and figuring out the place I’ve come from and the issues in my life that had been in my path, nicely, $1 million is a considerable sum of money. It’s an sum of money I’ll by no means must look again. It’s step one for me to get generational wealth.”

Now 25, that $1 million verify is out of the blue very a lot inside his grasp.

On Thursday (7 p.m., CBS Sports activities Community/DAZN) on the Mohegan Solar in Uncasville, Connecticut, McKee will meet Darrion Caldwell at Bellator 253 within the semifinals of Bellator’s featherweight grand prix.

There’s a $1 million prize to the winner, and McKee is 2 fights away from getting it.

His father and coach, Antonio, was a extremely profitable MMA fighter, at the very least record-wise. He went 30-6-2 in an MMA profession that prolonged by final 12 months. However he was by no means in the proper place on the proper time. He made it to the UFC for one battle, in 2011, when he was 41 years previous and he misplaced to Jacob Volkmann.

A.J. McKee is seen at a information convention selling the Bellator Spring & Summer time battle playing cards on Monday, March 9, 2020, in New York Metropolis. (AP Photograph/Gregory Payan)

Younger A.J. noticed what his father went by and probably not get rewarded for it.

It made fairly an impression.

“I watched my Dad prepare and beat up all form of guys,” A.J. stated. “He skilled Rampage, Couture, Chuck Liddell, Tito Ortiz. Anyone you possibly can probably consider, and these had been massive guys, they weren’t 155 pounders. I watched my Dad toy with these guys in apply. I used to ask him, ‘How come you don’t have the celebrity that they’ve? How come you don’t get the popularity that they get?’ It’s one thing that form of motivated me early on.

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“I began to have that downside in my very own profession. I began worrying about, ‘Man, they don’t respect me. They’re not giving me sufficient recognition. How come they’re giving this particular person all of the clout?’ However I acquired to some extent the place I stated screw it. None of it issues. I simply selected to give attention to being the very best particular person I could possibly be, inside and out of doors of the cage. These final two years, I’ve refocused my thoughts and my thought course of and the way in which I carry myself, and it’s been an enormous optimistic distinction for me.”

He stated he’s realized to method preventing as a enterprise, and whereas his preliminary objective of creating $1 million is within reach, he’s already put up a bigger objective.

He needs to make $100 million earlier than he walks away from the sport. And that begins, he stated, by doing the little issues it takes now to beat fighters like Caldwell.

“On the finish of the day, this can be a enterprise and you may’t lose sight of that,” he stated. “However for the individuals watching, it’s leisure. It’s a distraction from the issues of their on a regular basis lives. If you wish to develop, it’s important to win, as a result of everybody loves a winner, and it’s important to entertain.

“This sport remains to be younger and it’s nonetheless rising and I don’t know if at this level $100 million is practical, but it surely’s my objective and I’m going to work towards it. I’ve realized a lot about myself, about life and about preventing in a brief time frame and I really feel I’ve understanding of what it takes to get myself to that subsequent stage the place I need to be.”

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