On the night where the Notorious Conor McGregor returns to face former interim lightweight champion Dustin Poirier in their heavily awaited rematch, Khalil Rountree Jr collides with Marcin Prachino.
Rountree was born in Los Angeles, California. Growing up overweight and majorly unhealthy he decided to train after watching The Ultimate Fighter with his brother. At the age of 20 and weighing over 300lbs, Rountree took up MMA. After just one year in the sport, the 30-year-old started his amateur career.
After stringing 4 straight wins together in Resurrection Fighting Alliance, ‘The War Horse’ was invited in 2016 to take part in The Ultimate Fighter: Team Joanna vs Team Claudia. Despite losing his first fight via submission, he was bought back into the competition in the semi-final due to an injury to another opponent. After his lucky re-entrance, Rountree made it to the finale but unfortunately lost to Andrew Sanchez.
Since losing in the TUF finale, Rountree has beaten opponents Paul Craig, Gokhan Saki, and Eryk Anders. When beating the brakes off of Anders, UFC commentator, Joe Rogan claimed that it was the best that we had ever seen of Rountree.
Despite deep talks of ending his fighting career, Rountree signed a contract extension in October 2020. The Tiger Muay Thai representative was initially scheduled to fight Sam Alvey in March 2020. However, Due to Covid-19 causing havoc the bout was cancelled.
Rountree returns to the Octagon after just over a year off. His last fight was against Moldovan UFC fighter Ion Cutelaba at UFC Fight Night: Hermansson vs Cannonier where he fell victim to a brutal KO loss.
The man on the other side of the octagon joined the UFC in 2018 after an impressive 8 fight win streak in ONE championship.
Prachino is in a rather difficult situation after being knocked out in all 3 of his UFC appearances. A loss against Rountree would seemingly end his time in the promotion. The 32-year-old has rounded up losses against Sam Alvey, Magomed Ankalaev, and most recently Mike Rodriguez.
Both fighters will look to keep the 15-minute bout on the feet as they both believe that their stand-up game is their key to victory. Rountree will look to put his Muay Thai to practice by looking for leg kicks and body kicks to wear down his opponent before landing that killer blow with his haymaker hands.
The Polish-born product will look to evade the strikes of Rountree in order to land the killer blow. However, all signs lead to a dominant bout in favour of the Los Angeles born fighter.
I believe that Khalil Rountree is much more well-rounded in every aspect of the fighting game and if he fights as he did against Eryk Anders, he will cruise to victory and embarrass Marcin Prachino.
My fight prediction: Khalil Rountree JR via 1st round KO.
