AJ McKee has withdrawn from the Rizin x Bellator 2 event on July 30th, 2023, from the Saitama Super Arena, Japan, due to injury.
McKee was set to participate in the quarter-finals of the lightweight Grand Prix against Patricky Freire. As a result, McKee has now been replaced by Roberto de Souza.
The latter will face Patricky Pitbull in a 161-pound catchweight. De Souza’s last fight was a unanimous-decision win over Spike Carlyle, as the changes were officially confirmed.
With AJ McKee out due to injury, Roberto de Souza will step in to face Patricky Pitbull at Bellator x Rizin 2.
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— MMAFighting.com (@MMAFighting) July 26, 2023
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“We have four days until this weekend’s summer extravaganza and some of you my wonder why we are doing this presser. AJ McKee will be withdrawing from the Bellator card,” Nobuyuki Sakakibara (RIZN President)
“This type of issue can happen from time to time. Fighters get injured and they withdraw, AJ McKee cannot continue in our tournament and he will be eliminated (but) we will have him as an alternate. We hope in the future we can put this fight on again,” Scott Coker (Bellator President)
Elsewhere on the card, featherweight champion Patricio Pitbull faces Chihiro Suzuki. Pitbull’s last bout was a defeat as he lost out to Sergio Pettis at Bellator 297.
Meanwhile, Hiromasa Ougikubo squares off against Juan Archuleta for the bantamweight title.
Full Card
AJ McKee vs. Roberto de Souza (Lightweight)
Kyoji Horiguchi vs. Makoto Takahashi (flyweight title)
Kana Watanabe vs. Veta Arteaga (Flyweight)
Danny Sabatello vs. Magomed Magomedov (Bantamweight)
Andrey Koreshkov vs. Lorenz Larkin (Welterweight)