Khalil Rountree was not 100 percent against Jamahal Hill.
This past Saturday, Rountree faced off with Hill in the main event of UFC Baku, winning a dominant unanimous decision over the former light heavyweight champion. It was an important win for Rountree, who rebounded from his failed title challenge against Alex Pereira last year, and his performance was all the more impressive because he entered the fight sporting a serious knee injury.
“I’d say about halfway through training camp, when I was training jiu-jitsu, is the first time I felt some discomfort in my knee,” Rountree explained on his YouTube channel. “Just from training with bigger guys and doing four sessions a day, on top of running, and jiu-jitsu, and pads, that’s when I first started feeling the discomfort. It only grew from there until one day I woke up and it was really hard for me to walk and even stand. So I got it checked out and ended up having a torn meniscus.
“Once I found out what the injury was, I think it was only about three weeks away from the actual fight day. So it was obviously stressful, but I had amazing, positive support to keep going and not let it affect my mental, and to do whatever I could to push through it, and to take challenges and things like this as motivation. Use the obstacle as motivation.”
The injury didn’t hamper Rountree’s performance, as “The War Horse” dominated Hill with his superior movement and striking, chewing Hill’s legs up with kicks and dropping the former champion in the third round. While it’s never good to have an injury heading into a fight, Rountree says this one at least came with a silver lining.
“Initially, I was devastated, and I wasn’t really able to train how I wanted to,” Rountree said. “But it was kind of a blessing in disguise, because tonight I came into the cage really fresh, because I haven’t been able to spar in three weeks. There hasn’t really been a lot of contact, because the last three weeks has just been recovery, on top of getting sick during fight week.”
Rountree also credits the fans for his ability to overcome the hindrance. This was the UFC’s first trip to Azerbaijan, and Rountree says the love and support from those in attendance helped fuel his big win on Saturday.
“The positives about having so much fan support was that it’s nice to feel appreciated for what we do,” Rountree said. “Fighting, and committing your life to fighting, is not an easy job. So to see the reactions of people just genuinely appreciating that and genuinely excited to see us, it’s pretty motivational. That really helped keep me in a positive mindset this week, just knowing there were people that were more than excited to have us visit their country and watch us perform and do what we love. So, I’d say for the first time, I really was able to draw energy from the fans and use it as motivation to stay focused and do my job.”
