Ahead of his championship return tonight in the main event of UFC 307, the surging, Khalil Rountree has shared an insight into a prior sparring session with former divisional gold holder, Daniel Cormier — before the Hall of Famer’s move to the defunct, Strikeforce promotion, in which he was dominated.
Rountree, the current number eight ranked light heavyweight contender, is slated to headline tonight’s UFC 307 card against the incumbent gold holder, Alex Pereira — attempting to hand the Brazilian his first loss at 205lbs since his move from middleweight, where he also landed promotional spoils.
In the midst of an impressive winning run, Syndicate MMA staple, Rountree most recently featured back in December of last year at the Apex facility, stopping former title chaser, Anthony Smith with an eventual third round TKO victory.
Khalil Rountree reveals prior sparring clash with Daniel Cormier
And ahead of UFC 307 tonight, Rountree revealed he sparred with the aforenoted, Cormier years ago — where he was left “super emotional” after he was slammed for the first time in his career.
“I was like, maybe 280, and you were coming in around the same,” Khalil Rountree said on Daniel Cormier’s YouTube channel. “You were making your transition, about to fight in Strikeforce. You came to Wanderlei’s to train. I was swinging and I hit you with some stuff and you picked me up and you slammed me. And you were all over me. I think we did two rounds. After that, I was like super emotional and my boxing coach came over. He wrote your name on a piece of paper, he put it in my shirt, he said go home and watch that on YouTube. And I typed your name, and I was like, ‘”Okay, that’s why!” You slammed me, bro, it was like, and I didn’t even have an amateur fight yet.”
“We were sparring and I was swinging boom, I must have hit you and you picked me and boom,” Khalil Rountree explained. “I was crushed ’cause I was like damn, I’ve never been slammed like that in my life.”