A.J. McKee not happy with James Gallagher sliding into his DMs: 'I'll whoop his ass in his home town'

LONDON – Rising Bellator featherweight star A.J. McKee’s brewing rivalry with Ireland’s James Gallagher shows no sign of abating, with the American prospect offering to take on the Irishman in a future show in Dublin.

According to McKee (8-0 MMA, 8-0 BMMA), the ill-tempered relationship between the pair started back in December of last year, when he was part of Anthony Taylor’s team for his fight with Gallagher (6-0 MMA, 3-0 BMMA) at Bellator 169.

“He had his little altercation with Anthony, and he walks up to me and says, ‘You’re next, pussy!’

“I was like, ‘You’re gonna regret those words.’ Just like that. So I told him he was gonna regret those words and then, the reason I call him ‘Princess Gallagher,’ is he started sliding in my DMs like a girl. You’re like a little girl. Girls slide DMs.

“So Princess Gallagher slid in my DMs and he’s like, ‘You are next, you pussy!’ So we continued from there. We kept going back and forth, and that’s when the big brother in me started picking on him, (like) chastising a little brother.”

But the back-and-forth extended beyond the bounds of private social media messaging when Gallagher went public.

“He went on national television and called me a pussy,” McKee explained. “And that’s when I was like ‘Oh, it’s big brother ass-whipping time now.’ That’s straight disrespect. Those are fighting words.

“That line has been drawn and it’s been crossed. It’s been crossed, and it’s like ‘#SignTheContract,’ James. I’ve been saying it. Sign the dotted line, and I’m going to literally beat the brakes off him.”

McKee, who says he wants to be known as ‘Mr. International’ for his willingness to travel the globe and fight anywhere, said he’d relish the opportunity to fight ‘The Strabanimal’ on his own turf, just to underline his point.

“Dublin – I’ll whoop his ass in his home town, make his own people support me, you know?” McKee said. “Support a real champion like they support (Conor) McGregor.

“So I’m going to whoop his ass, then I’m coming after McGregor!”

McKee is in London as part of Kevin Ferguson Jr.’s team ahead of his bout at Bellator 179 on Friday night at The SSE Arena. And though “Baby Slice” lost his pro debut last time out, McKee says his teammate has worked hard to rectify the problems he had in that fight and is coming prepared the second time around.

“His first fight, he knew what he faced, he knew what he had to do, he went in there and did it. But the result of doing it not to the full potential – that’s where he came up short.

“He was beating the brakes off the dude and then got tired. So I feel that pressure we always had on him, like, ‘Hey! You need to go! You need to go! You need to go!’ Now he understands why we were on him that way. So understanding that and then training for this fight, knowing this was supposed to be the card his father was going to fight on, I feel like that’s added fuel to his fire to just really fire him up to go out there and put on a show.

“His training camp went great. He put in the work. His cardio is there. He’s dropping people with body shots in practice, so he’s ready, man. He’s got one thing to do now, and that’s go out there and do his job.”

For more on Bellator’s upcoming schedule, including Bellator 179, check out the MMA Rumors section of the site.