Khalil Rountree Plans to Put on a Show at UFC Fight Night 101

Khalil Rountree spoke with MMAjunkie about his fight with Tyson Pedro at UFC Fight Night 101 and more. Some highlights are below:

On his disappointment with his loss in the TUF 23 Finale: “I was pretty sad to lose the fight, but I was more sad that I couldn’t perform how I wanted to. Being that was the TUF 23 Finale, in my mind, I wanted to make that historical. I wanted to have like a Forrest Griffin-Stephan Bonnar type of thing. That’s what I wanted to do. I wanted to make sure that everybody was entertained. People wanted to see this fight. The fact that I didn’t really get to do much, that was more of a bummer for me. Losing, I was like, ‘Oh, that sucks.’ It kind of put me in jeopardy in my job, but I think overall, I wanted to do more.”

On learning from the loss: “I think in the fight back home in July, what went wrong was just my lack of knowledge. I think that I was mentally prepared. I was physically prepared to fight that fight, but I just didn’t know enough. Even Andrew said in his post-fight thing, he’s like, ‘Khalil is really green,’ and that’s true. I’ve only been fighting for five years now – training for six and fighting for five, so there’s still a lot for me to learn, and I’m eager to learn everything.”

On his fight with Pedro: “I get to stay sharp. I get to be on my best performance and behavior and make sure that I don’t disappoint this time. I’m excited to just let me art happen, my creativity happen, and let the fight go wherever instead of worrying about just one area.”

On his plan for the fight: “For me, (the focus) is always to put on a show. I think that in this sport, I could go out there and win the fight by laying on the guy or by doing something else, but I want to be able to make sure that people remember my last fight. So putting on a show (is the priority). If I lose and I get cut, it’s not the end of the world. But at least if I get an opportunity to put on a good show, I can remember it, and the fans can remember it. It can be something that 10 years from now. I can watch and say, ‘Hey, that was cool. I gave it my best shot.’ I think that just being able to put on a performance is most import for me.”