The first round saw both fighters have a relatively even exchange of strikes, as they attempted to gage each other’s fight strategies. With Pereira searching for sharp front kicks to the body whilst Rountree focused more on one-two punch combinations to Pereira’s head.
The intensity appeared to pick up in the 2nd round as Rountree ducked a question mark kicked and appeared to drop Pereira with a right hook which was ruled as a slip. The round carried on with Rountree catching Pereira with multiple hooks to the face and landing a heavy roundhouse kick to the side of Pereira’s head with 10 seconds to go.
Rountree was arguably winning the fight at this point as Periera had not shown much aggression or conviction thus far. The challenger came out swinging again as he landed a two-punch combination on Pereira, however it was obvious to many that Rountree was beginning to fatigue after all of the energy he had expended in trying to finish the fight. Towards the end of the 3rd round Pereira began to stalk his prey, landing multiple leg kicks, punches and knees on Rountree, who could only answer back with weak flailing punches that missed his target by some distance.
Pereira’s domination then became very apparent as Rountree had no answer for the barrage of strikes coming his way. Doing his best impression of Neo from The Matrix, Pereira avoided almost every counter that Rountree attempted to hit him with whilst simultaneously answering back with around 6 strikes of his own each time. This pressure eventually became too much to handle as Rountree valiantly fought back, showing a lot of heart but just not enough stamina to keep up with Pereira who showed no remorse as he continued to constantly land clean shots on Rountrees face. The fight was eventually stopped as Rountree finally fell to the floor after a vicious uppercut was delivered by Pereira. As the winner was announced, the damage that Rountree’s face had received resembled injuries more commonly associated with a car crash rather than a UFC fight.
Pereira’s hand was lifted as he defended his UFC Light-Heavyweight title for the 3rd time in just 175 days. Whilst Rountree deserves credit for giving Pereira one of his toughest challenges to date, the class disparity was still very evident as it has been with almost all of Pereira’s bouts. The UFC will have a hard time matching this monster with any fighter in the UFC as many consider him the world’s best pound-for-pound fighter.
The two would be an exciting stylistic matchup, however the weight discrepancy could be an issue due to Aspinall having a much larger frame than Pereira who has previously been able to fight at middleweight. Nevertheless, it would inevitably be one of the biggest fights in UFC history if the match was to be made and will leave fans forever curious about what would happen if this was to take place.