Say what you will about Khalil Rountree Jr’s title shot against Alex Pereira, Jamahal Hill thinks we’re in for a good fight.
Hill Weighs In On The UFC 307 Headliner
UFC 307 in Salt Lake City was in need of a main event for Oct. 5 and the light heavyweight champion Pereira would save the day yet again, defending his title for a third time this year against a rather unexpected title challenger. Outranked by seven others, Rountree Jr. got the call to fight for gold several months removed from his last win over Anthony Smith in December and a cancelled booking with the aforementioned Hill at UFC 303.
“I’m haven’t changed my tune. It’s a weird booking,” Hill said of Pereira vs. Rountree on Aljamain Sterling’s Weekly Scraps Podcast, confirming he’d be cageside for the matchup. “At the end of the day, you look at it… I must say, it’s still a good fight.”
Hill On What He Expects From Alex Pereira, Khalil Rountree
In a battle between heavy strikers – a kickboxing vs. Muay Thai fight, if you will, Hill thinks it’s safe to say the three judges won’t be needed for this one.
“100% it’s gonna be a knockout. I don’t see it [being a point-fight for five rounds]. I don’t see that because I don’t think Khalil has a 5 round gas tank,” Hill continued. “He’s gassed at paces that were much, much slower than the pace that he’s gonna have to fight with Alex.
“Now, Alex is gonna he’s gonna come out slow. He’s gonna come out, take his time to kinda close in and try to find the shots.
Pereira picked up his first successful title defense earlier this year, finding his shots on former foe Hill early in their fight at UFC 300. It’d take Pereira a little more than three minutes time to TKO the former champ with ground and pound after sitting him down with a devastating left hand.
“What Alex does that do, he likes to come in,” Hill said of Pereira. “He wants to come in. He wants to find the shot first. He wants to find the shot and try to find his way to start breaking down your defense. He’s a lot more forward imposing than he looks. Sometimes when you’re in there, it’s like, okay, this is a danger range.. If he doesn’t realize that, it will catch him off guard.”
Only one fighter in the UFC has been able to catch Alex Pereira completely off guard and that’s Israel Adesanya, but it took the two-time champ four tries to finally beat his kickboxing rival at UFC 287 last year.
Other than that, Pereira is perfect in his UFC tenure since coming on over from Glory Kickboxing.
Khalil Rountree is actually 3-0 against Glory kickboxers in the UFC, having defeated Gokhan Saki, Karl Roberson and Dustin Jacoby and hopes to add Pereira, a former champion in the promotion, to the list.
Hill On Pereira: ‘Southpaw Is The Stance That Gives Him Trouble’
Despite being counted out by many, Jamahal Hill could see where Khalil Rountree Jr. poses some problems to “Poatan”.
“The things that Khalil has going for him, 1, he’s southpaw. 2, he has valuable threats from southpaw,” Hill went on. “You actually look at even his kickboxing career, all that, southpaw is the stance that that gives him trouble. Can he beat southpaws? Yes. But, I haven’t seen him really dominate a southpaw that has multiple threats from southpaw.
The only people he recently he’s seen, he’s seen Jiri [Prochazka], but Jiri just went to southpaw. If you look, he’s very flat-footed. He didn’t really have anything from it.”
Of course, Hill himself is a southpaw and the Internet wouldn’t let “Sweet Dreams” forget it after getting slept by Pereira in April.
"I've never seen him dominate a southpaw" bro you were there😭😭😭 https://t.co/eIgwfHyljs pic.twitter.com/24vNftBqN6
— American MMA🇺🇸🇮🇱 (@americanjitsu) September 23, 2024
