Alex Pereira and Khalil Rountree Jr. put on a show in the UFC 307 main event and earned high praise from their boss.
The battle between two elite strikers ended after Pereira busted up Rountree in the fourth round as several cuts resulted in blood just pouring down the challenger’s face and chest. With Rountree fading, Pereira seized on the opening by delivering a pair of brutal body shots followed by an uppercut that helped him secure his third knockout win in 2024.
UFC CEO Dana White took a victory lap after he heard some complaints that Rountree wasn’t deserving because of his ranking because he knew the stylistic matchup would deliver come fight night.
“Did this not play out the way everybody thought it would?” White said at the UFC 307 post-fight press conference. “Everybody knew. Everybody at first, ‘Oh, he’s ranked No. 8’ — you knew it was going to be a badass fight. You knew it was going to be a badass fight.
“You can never measure heart. You don’t know how that’s going to go. Now you know.”
While Pereira ultimately got the win, he had to bide his time during the first couple of rounds as Rountree came out gunning for the knockout.
White was incredibly impressed by Rountree’s willingness to stand in the pocket and exchange with arguably the most lethal striker in recent UFC history.
“He had no fear from the first round,” White said about the title challenger. “Khalil Rountree went in there and started going at it the minute the bell rang. No fear, no jitters, no nerves. Maybe he had some jitters and nerves, if he did, he didn’t show it.
“He went right in against one of the baddest dudes of all time and just started mixing it up with him. It was awesome.”
When it came to Pereira’s performance, White noted that “Poatan” used a brilliant strategy to dismantle Rountree by chopping away at his foundation through a series of crippling calf kicks.
After Rountree’s leg was chewed up and compromised, Pereira didn’t have to fear reprisal as much when he stepped in the pocket to trade punches. That led to Pereira slicing and dicing Rountree with his lead jab before he set up the fight-finishing combination against the cage.
“I felt like the difference was the low leg kick,” White said about Pereira’s strategy. “When he started calf kicking him, he was destroying that leg and [Khalil] was having trouble putting pressure on it and he was having trouble with his punching power, his movement everything. He systematically just started picking him apart.”
It turns out Pereira had his opponent perfectly scouted because White was reminded about a pre-fight feature where the reigning UFC light heavyweight champion laid out exactly what he needed to do to beat Rountree on Saturday night.
“When I watched the feature [on the fight], he said, ‘This guy hits hard, he’s tough, he’s this, he’s that and this guy has a dream but my fight IQ will win this fight,’” White said. “He said that in the combo feature and that’s exactly the way it played out.”
Considering the momentum that Pereira has built recently along with the highlight-reel finishes, he’s starting to put together the kind of résumé that rivals a number of UFC legends.
That includes Anderson Silva, who was arguably the most feared champion on the entire UFC roster during his reign over the middleweight division. Now it seems like Pereira is carrying around that same kind of invincible aura.
“What this guy has done is unbelievable,” White said about Pereira. “Not just if you want to compare him to [Anderson Silva], the way he’s done it. This guy destroys everybody.”