Poatan Strikes Again! Alex Pereira Knocks Out Khalil Rountree Jr At UFC 307
Apologies for having no live tweets/blogs last night - I'm on a trip to Europe for a friend's wedding and yesterday was a travel day. Appreciate everyone understanding.
Alex Pereira just proved for the third time this year that he is who we thought he was. Three main events since April, three devastating finishes. Who's next?!?!
A lot of people were clowning this matchup with Khalil Rountree Jr going into the night, because Rountree is ranked #8 in the division and earned a title shot off a win over Anthony Smith in December and a fight cancellation with Jamahal Hill in June - but god dammit, he brought the fight to Alex and showed an insane amount of heart to make up for that. You might not be able to tell from the post-fight photos, but he actually won the first two rounds and even hurt Pereira at one point! You hang in there with Pereira long enough, though, and he'll have your white shorts turning red by the end of the fight….
….but Pereira quickly hit the Uno Reverse Card on him and roasted him at the post-fight presser, which people loved….
Outside of that, the card was good but not great. There was some drama early with a local Utah ref who didn't know what he was doing, the judges were iffy all night (I was on the losing end of FOUR very controversial split decisions), and we only got one true knockout aside from the main event….
SUCKS that it had to be Wonderboy. He was fighting pretty well, too - oh well.
In the co-main event, Julianna Peńa defeated Raquel Pennington for the UFC Women's Bantamweight Championship (she was one of the four controversial split decisions I lost) which should set up a fight between her and Kayla Harrison, who also won last night….
We'll see, though, because that isn't who Julianna called out afterwards….
Either way, I think Peña loses the belt in her next fight and Nunes comes out of retirement for the Kayla Harrison superfight. It's just a matter of which one will walk into the matchup champ - Kayla or Amanda.