Khalil Rountree Jr. competes in his first Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) main at UFC 307 this weekend (Sat., Oct. 5, 2024) as he tries to slay Light Heavyweight champion Alex Pereira from inside Delta Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Pereira brought in former UFC Middleweight champion Sean Strickland for his training camp to help prepare for Rountree Jr. At UFC 307 media day (watch here), Rountree Jr. was asked about Pereira’s decision to bring in someone he had past beef with, and he revealed that Strickland actually apologized for their problems in the past.
“Yeah. I mean, I saw it, and I was, like, cool,” Rountree Jr. told the media. “Honestly, the last interaction that I had with Sean Strickland was at the UFC P.I. It was literally the day after Dan Ige stepped in for that fight on like three hours, four hours notice, or something like that… Out of the blue, Sean Strickland came up to me. He approached me, and he just said, like, ‘Khalil, I apologize, I’m a dumbass. I actually kind of like you. I think you’re liberal, but, you know, but overall, I like you, or I respect you,’ something along those lines.
“So what I took it as is, almost like squashing whatever beef, you know what I mean, or just saying, like, ‘Look dude, I am who I am. I’m gonna say what I’m gonna say, but I’m coming here to personally shake your hand, tell you I think you’re a liberal, but you know, to a certain level, I respect you.’ You know what I mean? It was like that. So I took it as like, okay, you’re coming here to kind of make the peace. I left it at that. So now, anything moving forward, like anything that’s said, or whatever, I got that sort of my memory bank, so I know that there’s really no issue. It’s really just talk, and I won’t concern myself with it,” Rountree Jr concluded.
Strickland completely snapped on Rountree Jr. in 2022 after “War Horse” cried during his post-fight interview and has insulted him for the past two years whenever given a chance.
On the other hand, Rountree completely no-sold the beef and ignored him, even acting like he didn’t know who he was.
Thankfully, this uncomfortable beef is over for now (until Strickland snaps again).
Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 307 fight card right here, starting with the early ESPN+ “Prelims” matches online, which are scheduled to begin at 6:30 p.m. ET (simulcast on ESPNews at 8 p.m. ET), before the pay-per-view (PPV) main card start time at 10 p.m. ET (also on ESPN+).
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