Khalil Rountree Jr. came up short at UFC 307, but he didn’t take for granted the long path he took to get there.
In Saturday’s main event at Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Rountree went toe-to-toe with light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira before eventually succumbing to strikes in Round 4. Though Rountree was covered in blood by the end of the bout, he gave the former kickboxing star a run for his money in the striking department, and afterwards he told Joe Rogan that his mood wasn’t dampened by the loss.
“My thought coming into this fight was just to be grateful, really,” Rountree said in his post-fight interview. “I’ve been doing all this for a long time and everybody heard my story, but I was just really excited to come in here, and I really just embraced the moment all the way up until this moment.”
“No, I don’t think I was surprised [by Pereira’s striking] at all,” Pereira continued. “I thought that I was going to be able to hit him a lot more, but he did a really good job at evading the punches and counter-striking.”
Before Rountree could finish his thought, he had to blow a bloody stream of snot out to clear his nose. The gruesome gesture was a fitting exclamation point for one of the most violent fights of 2024.
Rountree, who went from Ultimate Fighter finalist to UFC title challenger over an eight-year stretch, had nothing but love for the crowd in Salt Lake City and vowed to compete in Utah sometime in the future.
“I’ll never forget this training camp my whole life,” Rountree said. “You guys have been so f*cking awesome. I would love to come back anytime, train at altitude, fight here again, I love you guys. I swear to God I’ll be back one day.”
