King Green says he does not want to give Terrance McKinney the fast start that has powered so many of his fights. At Wednesday’s media day for UFC 329 in LAS VEGAS, Green said he wants the bout to last and said he expects to keep working long after the opening burst that usually decides McKinney’s night.
That is the point of the matchup now. Green, 39, enters UFC 329 with a 35-17-1 MMA record and a 16-12-1 mark in the UFC, while McKinney is 18-8 overall and 8-5 in the UFC. Green said he is not interested in letting McKinney off the hook with a quick end, and the numbers explain why. McKinney has finished all but one of his wins in the first round, and he has never won a UFC fight after leaving that first round. Every UFC finish he has produced has come in the opening frame.
Green has the opposite kind of recent run. He is on a three-fight winning streak in the UFC, and all three wins came in the past seven months. That stretch has given him a sharper edge in this fight than just the records suggest, especially against an opponent who has put together several two-fight winning streaks but has not gone beyond that. Green also said McKinney has the kind of style that tries to end things quickly, calling him a quick pumper before joking that McKinney sounds like he is ready to be done as soon as the heat rises.
The friction between them is not complicated. McKinney’s best path is the kind of early explosion that has defined his career, while Green is openly promising to slow it down and make him work. Green said he plans to fight for a long time, not one round, and that is a direct challenge to a fighter who has never been more vulnerable than when a bout drags past the opening minutes. McKinney has also never faced anyone with as much experience as Green, who has north of 50 fights, which only raises the stakes for whether his usual first-round pattern can survive a more seasoned opponent.
For Green, the fight is about more than style. He said he is still kicking ass at 39 and that the run is about proving people wrong after being written off. He said he has had people forget about him and treat him differently when they did not think he would amount to much, and that he sees this as a little revenge. UFC 329 is set for Saturday at T-Mobile Arena, and the unanswered question is simple: whether McKinney can force his kind of fight before Green turns it into a longer night.
