Khalil Rountree has got a tough task ahead of him at UFC 307 where he will be walking into the biggest fight of his career.
The #8-ranked light heavyweight contender will be challenging Alex Pereira for the title in Salt Lake City.
Rountree’s striking has proven to be very dangerous, but implementing that against someone as technical as the former two-weight GLORY kickboxing world champion will not be easy.
One man knows about facing Pereira better than anyone else and he had some thoughts to pass onto the challenger ahead of Saturday night.
Israel Adesanya Lays Out Flawed Game Plan For Khalil Rountree
During his UFC 307 predictions on his YouTube channel, Israel Adesanya spoke about how Rountree can win this fight.
“The Last Stylebender” has faced off with “Poatan” twice in kickboxing and twice in MMA, winning their last encounter at UFC 287 via knockout.
He said that Rountree’s best route to victory is getting it done early before Pereira can start to break him down and set traps.
However, Adesanya then corrected his own point by stating that being overly aggressive against Pereira can also play into the Brazilian’s hands.
If Rountree is to take one piece of advice from this, it’s to back his opponent up to avoid what the former two-time UFC middleweight champion describes as “drowning”.
“Khalil has to just go at him, can’t be scared, just press him back. You can, it’s possible, press him back. Watch out for the low kicks cuz that’s what he’s gonna use to stop him… Khalil attack the body, attack the legs too cuz Pereira will take them but he doesn’t get affected by them till later, much later. If Khalil is gonna win, he’s gonna have to win or try and win early but that’s a dumb game plan so don’t listen to me. Don’t try and win early cuz that’s how you get caught as well with Pereira. He can catch him with anything. Catch him with hook coming in, knee, leg kicks and then eventually, when you feel like the third one, you’re like, ‘Oh s***,’ then I can’t press him back anymore. Then it’s like a matter of time as you’re drowning.”
Adesanya would, however, go on to pick Alex Pereira to win the fight at UFC 307, in his official predictions.
