SALT LAKE CITY – It seems the meat between Khalil Rountree and Sean Strickland is over – at the least from Rountree’s facet.
Rountree (14-5 MMA, 9-5 UFC) challenges gentle heavyweight champion Alex Pereira (11-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 307 (pay-per-view, ESPNews, ESPN+) headliner at Delta Heart in Salt Lake Metropolis.
Strickland is in Salt Lake Metropolis to assist Pereira prep for Rountree, whom he’s by no means been keen on. His problem with him began in 2022 when he went off on Rountree for crying throughout one in all his post-fight scrums. Rountree downplayed his feedback, claiming he didn’t know who Strickland was.
Rountree says Strickland approached him a few months in the past to apologize, however that didn’t cease the previous UFC middleweight champion from lately going off on Rountree once more, calling him a “liberal c*ck beta male,” in addition to accusing him of being in a cult.
“Actually, the final interplay that I had with Sean Strickland was on the UFC PI. It was actually the day after Dan Ige stepped in for that struggle on like three hours, 4 hours’ discover, or one thing like that,” Rountree instructed MMA Junkie and different reporters at Wednesday’s UFC 307 media day. “Out of the blue, Sean Strickland got here as much as me. He approached me, and he simply stated, like, ‘Khalil, I apologize. I’m a dumbass. I really form of such as you. I believe you’re liberal, however general, I such as you’ or ‘I respect you,’ one thing alongside these strains.
“So what I took it as is, virtually like squashing no matter beef, or simply saying, like, ‘Look dude, I’m who I’m. I’m going to say what I’m going to say, however I’m coming right here to personally shake your hand, inform you I believe you’re a liberal to a sure stage, I respect you.’ It was like that. So I took it as like, OK, you’re coming right here to form of make the peace. I left it at that. So now, something shifting ahead, something that’s stated, I’ve received that in my reminiscence financial institution, so I do know that there’s actually no problem. It’s actually simply discuss, and I received’t concern myself with it.”
Strickland is predicted to get his desired title-fight rematch with UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis, who edged him out by break up resolution of their first struggle in January,
For extra on the cardboard, go to MMA Junkie’s occasion hub for UFC 307.
You’ll want to go to the MMA Junkie Instagram web page and YouTube channel to debate this and extra content material with followers of combined martial arts.