Khalil Rountree Jr. is taking a few key lessons from his loss against former light heavyweight champion Jiri Prochazka at UFC 320.
The Fight of the Night battle on the main card of the pay-per-view event at T-Mobile in Las Vegas saw Rountree Jr. (14-7 MMA, 10-7 UFC) clearly take the first two rounds. However, in the third, Prochazka (32-5-1 MMA, 6-2 UFC) came out on a mission to finish the fight, and violently achieved his goal.
At the moment, Rountree Jr. is still processing everything, but has also identified a few lessons.
“A big learning, especially from this fight is just how hard it is to achieve balance, you know?” Rountree Jr. said on “The JAXXON PODCAST.” “It’s just the journey of fighting and of life, and just in general, like, balance. Because I do have these kind of polarizing sides in a way, and it’s my job and my journey to find that middle ground.”
Reflecting upon the outcome, Rountree Jr. recognized his energy before the fight was very different when he woke up on the day in Baku, Azerbaijan to face Jamahal Hill. He recalls being in a more relaxed, natural state throughout the day, and the result of the fight was positive. Conversely, the day of UFC 320, Rountree Jr. said his energy levels were very high. He didn’t categorize it as good or bad energy, but it was simply more levated than usual.
Rountree Jr. also cleared the air about his strategy in the fight. He didn’t set out to avoid taking Prochazka to the ground, like he did when he fought Alex Pereira for the title at UFC 307.
“No, that’s a very bad narrative,” Rountree Jr. said. “I refused, with a ‘D’ to use it against Alex. Yes, it was for the belt and everything, but I promised from the moment that I even called for that fight that it would be for the fans. So, that fight, I had an agreement, ‘Look, we’re gonna go toe-to-toe.’ I didn’t say for the rest of my career, I’m never shooting a takedown. That is something that has just been totally taken out of context. The reason why it didn’t happen this fight is because that just wasn’t my natural instinct in that moment, because everything was good until it wasn’t.”
“A lot of times, going against a guy in the light heavyweight division, we weigh-in at 205, we come in the next day between 220 and 230. So, we’re coming in 20 pounds heavier, no matter what. We’re rehydrated up, we’re fueled up. We’ve been training like monsters for months to fight each other. We’re the best in the world too, let’s just put it right there. You’ve got No. 2 vs. No. 4 – baddest men on the planet. All it takes is one left hook to the temple to get your body to start – equilibrium thrown off, you know, whatever happens that you can’t control. You can do your best to control.”
Roundtree Jr. admits everything started to go wrong after Prochazka landed a strong left hook. From that point, he remembers doing everything possible to survive being rocked, but the way the former champ poured on the pressure, it was very difficult to manage. The fight ended a few moments later, and now all Rountree Jr. can do is learn from the moment as he moves forward.
“There was a left hook that hit me on the eye, and it was a big shot,” Roundtree Jr. said. “When you play the UFC video game, sometimes you see the character start flashing red and you’ve gotta get him out, you’ve gotta back him out just to get him back to (normal) when you’re playing the game. It’s a very similar reaction, that’s kind of a real reaction.
“So, when I say everything was good until it wasn’t, was meaning like, yeah, I got into a mode where I needed to save myself, but he kept the pressure. So, I’m trying to save myself, collect my thoughts, make the right decisions – the list of things that comes with that, all while he was putting pressure, and it was just a timing thing. Now I get to go back and work on what happens if that happens again. What decisions do I make? This is a lot of growth. This is the growth period of my life.”
