Brazilian superstar Alex ‘Poatan’ Pereira is in preparation for his third world title fight of 2024, this time against veteran contender Khalil Rountree Jr at elevation in Salt Lake City, Utah.
Given the unique challenge presented by the 13-5 veteran, Alex Pereira is set to link up with one of his former opponents; someone who already knows how to deal with ‘The War Horse’ on the battlefield.
Alex Pereira teams up with Sean Strickland ahead of UFC 307 title fight
UFC 307 is scheduled for Saturday, October 5 from Salt Lake City, Utah, with Alex Pereira set to defend his light heavyweight title against fan-favorite contender Khalil Rountree Jr in the main event of the evening.
In order to get acclimatized to the elevation of Salt Lake City, which sits around 1,300m (4,300ft) above sea level, Pereira is already in Utah and admitted that he was finding the training at altitude ‘hard’.
“What’s up people, today we are here in Salt Lake City, productive day, right Glover?” stated Pereira on the latest episode of his UFC 307 Fight Camp YouTube series.
“Two training [sessions], we trained today at 11 AM and trained for one hour and a half, it’s hard [at] the altitude… We did it one time here [before] when I fought [Jan] Blachowicz – that was two weeks, now it’s three weeks [so] I think it will be better timing.”
Given the challenge of fighting at such an altitude, Pereira was pleased with the fact that he has such a large and experienced team behind him – a team that’ll have a familiar face joining it next week.
“We have a good team, Glover [Teixeira], Plinio [Cruz], Yousri [Belgaroui], Cesinha [Cesar Almeida], and Sean Strickland will be here with us next week… The whole crew is here, very happy [and] excited. With all this preparation, for me it’s been very good to do this, come [here] three weeks earlier.”
Pereira and Strickland first faced each other back in July 2022, with Poatan scoring a brutal first-round knockout; since then, the two have seemingly become good friends, with multiple videos being shared of the pair of superstars sparring each other out in Las Vegas.
Sean Strickland and Khalil Rountree already don’t like each other
Strickland will also be a vital part of the UFC 307 camp as he used to train with Khalil Rountree Jr, with the controversial former middleweight champion having some choice words for ‘The War Horse’ in the past.
In fact, Strickland would claim on an episode of the Joe Rogan Podcast that one of the reasons why the two don’t like each other is because ‘Tarzan’ once gave an ‘inspirational’ but rather backhanded speech that included a small joke at Rountree’s expense.
“We’re training right, and I give some good speeches, some good raw speeches and I’m like ‘When you guys are wrestling, you’ve got to pick the f***** baddest m****** here and if I see you with Khalil Rountree, I know that’s not what you did.’
“So I said that speech as a raw-raw moment for Khalil to be like ‘F*** you Sean, I’m going to show you what’s up’ and I thought it would make him step up, but instead he just stormed off the mat… He walked off and he’s like ‘Sean, I don’t respect you, I don’t like you’.”
- UFC 307: Khalil Rountree Jr’s head coach believes Alex Pereira will ‘break game’ and shoot a takedown
Back in 2023, Rountree would tell reporters “I don’t even know who that dude is, you guys keep asking me about this name, [but] I don’t even know this person,” to which Strickland responded by accusing Rountree of being in a ‘cult’.
Pereira vs Rountree Jr goes down October 5, live from Salt Lake City.