Khalil Rountree Jr. gave Alex Pereira everything he could handle but it was not enough to win the light heavyweight title as “Poatan” earned a technical knockout victory in the main event of UFC 307 in Salt Lake City on Saturday.
Pereira improved to 5-0 since moving up to the 205-pound division last year with his third consecutive title defence.
Rountree did well in the first two rounds, briefly knocking Pereira down after dodging a head kick attempt and even landing a head kick of his own.
Pereira gained momentum back in Round 3 by finding a home for his jab and putting Rountree on the back foot and turning on the gas. He battered Rountree to earn a late fourth-round win.
Julianna Pena defeated Raquel Pennington in a close split decision in the co-main to become a two-time women’s bantamweight champion.
Pena had success with her grappling in the first half of the fight and Pennington began landing damaging strikes mostly in the final two rounds.
Kayla Harrison improved to 2-0 in the UFC and 18-1 in MMA with a unanimous decision win over Ketlen Viera on the main card and had a message for both Pennington and Pena before they fought.
“Ladies, enjoy it while you can because the queen is home and I’m coming for that (expletive) gold,” the two-time Olympic gold medallist in judo said after her victory.
Harrison is presumed to be next in line for a title shot in the women’s 135-pound division.
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Mario Bautista picked up the biggest win of his career earlier on the main card. Bautista was on the right side of a split decision against former featherweight champion and Hall of Famer Jose Aldo in their bantamweight contest.
Bautista has won seven in a row with his past three all going the distance.
Aldo’s most notable former opponent, Conor McGregor, posted on social media that he thought the judges’ rendering was a “dirt decision.”
Roman Dolidze picked up his second consecutive win with a technical knockout victory over Kevin Holland in middleweight action. Dolidze was getting the better of the action on the ground in the opening round but the end of the fight was anticlimactic with Holland sustaining a rib injury during the first five minutes and his corner stopped the fight before the start of Round 2.
Inaugural UFC women’s strawweight champion Carla Esparza officially announced her retirement from mixed martial arts following a close loss to Tecia Pennington on the preliminary card.
The two-time titleholder defeated Rose Namajunas to win the first all-female season of The Ultimate Fighter back in 2014 and beat Namajunas in a title fight a second time in 2022. Esparza is one of most accomplished fighters in women’s MMA history.
In other preliminary action, Joaquin Buckley kept rolling in the welterweight division and picked up another highlight-reel knockout as he finished popular former title Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson in the third round.
UFC 307 marked the organization’s third pay-per-view event in as many years to take place at Utah’s Delta Center.
