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Khalil Rountree scored a unanimous decision victory over former UFC Light Heavyweight Champion Jamahal Hill in the main event of UFC Fight Night Baku.
Both fighters walked out of the Octagon with bumps and bruises, but Rountree also entered the Octagon with injuries.
“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 (transcript via Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting). “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.”
Injured or not, Rountree dominated Hill over the five rounds of fighting, earning scorecards of 50-45, 50-45 and 49-48.
Rountree also believes that the pre-fight injury may have been a blessing in disguise.
“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.”
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