When Khalil Rountree stepped into the main event slot at UFC 307 to face Alex Pereira for the light heavyweight title, he wanted to put on a show. Of course, leaving Salt Lake City with the belt was always the number one priority but Rountree always aims to entertain.
He was unsuccessful in dethroning “Poatan” but that didn’t stop the fight from being an entertaining watch after the challenger was able to make it competitive in the opening rounds.
This opinion seemingly wasn’t shared by former champion Jamahal Hill who later clarified his yawning response at the end of the main event.
Hill stated on his YouTube channel that him yawning after the UFC 307 headliner wasn’t due to the fight not being an engaging watch for the four rounds that it lasted. “Sweet Dreams” claims that his reaction was more based on him not seeing anything surprising or impressive from either competitor, hence why he was bored.
Rountree gave his take on this in a recent interview with MMA Junkie where he stated that he’s glad that Hill gave more context to this clip. The former title challenger was originally set to face Hill at UFC 303 earlier this year but when the fight didn’t materialize, Rountree went straight to the champion instead.
He said that after seeing the video of Hill on social media after the fight, he was slightly puzzled by his reaction but isn’t too concerned by his explanation either.
It’s nice to hear the clarification because based off the crowd response and everything that I’ve seen, other articles and posts that I’ve seen, majority of people seemed to think it was an entertaining fight. So I was a bit confused to see why maybe he thought it was boring or worth a yawn but like I said, the clarification definitely helps and yeah, not everyone’s going to think the same. Not everyone’s going to be entertained. It’s good, if there’s nothing to be scared of, like cool.”
