{"id":854938,"date":"2025-06-11T19:12:53","date_gmt":"2025-06-12T00:12:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/11\/a-j-mckee-corey-anderson-added-to-pfl-cape-town\/"},"modified":"2025-06-11T19:12:53","modified_gmt":"2025-06-12T00:12:53","slug":"a-j-mckee-corey-anderson-added-to-pfl-cape-town","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/2025\/06\/11\/a-j-mckee-corey-anderson-added-to-pfl-cape-town\/","title":{"rendered":"A.J. McKee, Corey Anderson added to PFL Cape Town"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

A.J. McKee<\/a> returns to the featherweight division as the PFL makes its debut in Africa.<\/p>\n

The league announced Friday that former Bellator champion McKee (22-2) is set to fight Akhmed Magomedov<\/a> (11-1) in a 145-pound bout on the PFL Champions Series portion of its Cape Town, South Africa, event that takes place July 19. Corey Anderson<\/a>, Bellator\u2019s last light heavyweight champion, has also been added to the card as he faces Denis Goltsov<\/a> in a heavyweight bout.<\/p>\n

See PFL\u2019s announcement below.<\/p>\n

McKee competes for the first time in 2025 and as a featherweight for the first time since 2022. The 30-year-old won his first title at Bellator 263<\/a> with a stunning first-round submission of Patricio Pitbull<\/a>, but dropped the belt back to Pitbull and suffered his first-ever loss in their immediate rematch. McKee then moved up to lightweight, where he went 4-0 before losing a close split decision to Paul Hughes<\/a> this past October.<\/p>\n

Standing opposite McKee will be Russia\u2019s Magomedov, who made a successful PFL debut with a submission of Nathan Kelly<\/a> in January after going 1-1 under the Bellator banner.<\/p>\n

Anderson (18-6, 1 NC) has not fought since March 2024. In his most recent outing, Anderson claimed a vacant Bellator light heavyweight title by defeating Karl Moore<\/a>. His reign was brief as Bellator was purchased by and absorbed into PFL later that year.<\/p>\n

His move to heavyweight is no surprise as he booked a fight in that division against longtime rival Vadim Nemkov<\/a> for a PFL event in January, but Nemkov declined the bout claiming the league was unwilling to renegotiate his contract<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Goltsov (36-8) looks to add Anderson to his recent hit last after finally claiming a PFL tournament title in 2024, the end of a five-year chase for the Russian heavyweight.<\/p>\n

PFL Africa<\/a> is headlined by Johnny Eblen<\/a> defending a middleweight title against Costello van Steenis<\/a>, while 2024 flyweight champion Dakota Ditcheva<\/a> fights Sumiko Inaba<\/a> in the co-main event.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Alexander K. Lee
Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A.J. McKee returns to the featherweight division as the PFL makes its debut in Africa. The league announced Friday that former Bellator champion McKee (22-2) is set to fight Akhmed Magomedov (11-1) in a 145-pound bout on the PFL Champions Series portion of its Cape Town, South Africa, event that takes place July 19. Corey<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":854939,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[28835,37274],"tags":[14032,99211],"class_list":["post-854938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-corey","category-mckee","tag-corey","tag-mckee"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=854938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/854938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/854939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=854938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=854938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/newsycanuse.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=854938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}