by:  Jack Bratcher

Gan “The Giant” McGee made his return to the cage tonight after retiring from professional MMA competition four years ago. McGee, once a top-contender UFC heavyweight, faced Jonathan Ivey at XFC’s SOAF 5 – Return of the Giant in Tampa, Florida. 11,250 came out to see “The Giant” destroy his opponent with a second round TKO.

Xtreme Fighting Championship is the most successful MMA promotion in Florida. Over 11,200 fans were in attendance this evening, surpassing XFC’s June 28 attendance of 10,700. This was the fourth consecutive XFC event to fill at least 10,000 seats.

“It feels great to be back,” McGee stated in a post-fight interview. “I love fighting. I [expletive] love it! Really short guys are really hard to hit, but I did what I had to do. ‘The Giant’ is back!”

McGee’s opponent, Jonathan Ivey, is an MMA veteran of over 60 professional fights. Apparently Ivey wanted to get the fight to the ground and frustrated “The Giant” in the first round. The second round was a different story as McGee landed a flurry of devastating headshots causing the referee to stop the fight just 59 seconds in. Ivey clearly had trouble dealing with the reach advantage of “The Giant.”

It will be very interesting to see how far Gan McGee can take this new found motivation to compete.  He has expressed interest in fighting Brock Lesnar and feels confident he could defeat the rising UFC star.  Whether he will ever get the chance to come back to the UFC is not known but he’s definitely on the right track after tonight’s performance.

Full results of Xtreme Fighting Championship “Salute to Our Armed Forces 5: The Return of the Giant”:

Brandon Palant defeated Justin Goodall by TKO, 3:36 in round one
Justin Flood defeated Brandon Watts by TKO, 1:36 in round one
Frank Sharipov defeated Shah “Hollywood” Bobonis, unanimous decision
Tony Harvey defeated Josh Cate by TKO, 27 seconds in round one
Robert Turner defeated John Holliman by TKO, 1:05 in round one
Corey Krebs defeated Jermain Wilson by TKO, 16 seconds in round one
Donny Wallace defeated Richard Boyd by tapout, 1:22 in round one
Dave “Pay Me” Yost defeated Billy Colon by TKO, 2:55 in round two
Gan “The Giant” McGee defeated Johnathan Ivey by TKO, 59 seconds in round two

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