Antonio McKee has his critics, and UFC 125 opponent Jacob Volkmann is one of them.
After watching some tape of McKee use wrestling and top control to outpoint opponents, Volkmann came away unimpressed.
“It was pretty boring,” Volkmann said during an October interview on the Sherdog Radio Network’s “Beatdown” show. “He just took the guy down, stayed in his guard and he did a little bit of ground-and-pound, and that’s it. He’s a very boring fighter.”
Volkmann meets McKee on Saturday in a preliminary lightweight bout. Although McKee’s style has proven dominant in the cage, Volkmann has the better wrestling resume. He was a three-time All-American at the University of Minnesota; McKee did not wrestle Division I but was a standout at a community college in California.
“He’s a wrestler and I don’t even know if he wrestled in college, did he? So he really doesn’t understand when it actually comes to wrestling that there’s a lot more than just what you learned from high school,” Volkmann said. “There’s finer points in wrestling, finer points on how to defend takedowns, and he doesn’t understand that. And how to shoot: He shoots with his head down. He reaches. It’s going to be actually pretty fun to sprawl on him and take his back.”
Volkmann was quick to state his belief that his wrestling is better than McKee’s. He doesn’t think that will keep McKee from shooting for takedowns, though.
“He shoots no matter what,” Volkmann said. “It doesn’t matter. He’s going to shoot even if he gets out of position. He’s still going for the legs. Even if he’s five feet away, he shoots. I’m assuming it’s going to get to the ground. It’s just a matter of who’s going to end up on top.”
Despite his confidence in his wrestling, Volkmann said he’s also prepared to be on the bottom. He’s been training with Paul Bradley, a two-time All-American wrestler at Iowa, and does not think McKee can hold him down.
“Paul Bradley’s one of those guys that will take you down and he’ll hold you,” Volkmann said. “So I’ve been working a lot with him, just moving your hips and pushing his head down to your hips and moving. It’s pretty easy to get out. Eventually you’re going to get out. I’m not too worried about his punches, so as long as I’m not worried about his punches, I can get out of there pretty easy.”
While Volkmann may have the more impressive wrestling pedigree, McKee is vastly more experienced in the cage. Volkmann debuted in 2007, roughly eight years after McKee had scored his first win.
Volkmann did get to the Octagon first, though. The fight Saturday will be his fifth in the UFC but just the first for McKee, who had called out the promotion for not signing him despite a strong record. Volkmann was largely unaware of the route McKee has taken to the UFC and questioned why fans would have wanted him to get a shot in the big show.
“First of all, I didn’t even know he had fans,” Volkmann said. “I thought he was a very boring fighter. Whoever watches him probably doesn’t watch anybody else fight.”
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Originally Posted by Luke
