Step One: Smoke Khalil Rountree

Update: Admittedly, this fight didn’t result in the one-way traffic or one-punch knockout I thought it would. But in terms of GOAT resume-building, it may have yielded a more beneficial outcome. After losing the first two rounds to the challenger, Pereira showed poise, patience, and championship mettle as he systematically broke his less-experienced opponent down.

He became more defensive as he was forced to respect Rountree’s speed and power. He stayed calm once he had him hurt, perhaps learning from when Israel Adesanya played possum and knocked him out with a peek-a-boo counter in Miami. And, maybe most impressively, he got the TKO through consistent accuracy when Rountree stood tall and weathered his hardest power punches.

Though Rountree’s courageous performance was the type of showing that’d make fans out of spectators, Poatan’s adjustment to adversity produced the kind of win that makes GOATs out of champions.

Throughout the build-up to this fight, Khalil Rountree has repeated some version of the famous last words uttered by most of Alex Pereira’s opponents. Like Sean Strickland, Jamahal Hill, and, to an extent, Jiří Procházka before him, Rountree intends to have a kickboxing match with the most dangerous kickboxer on the planet. This in combination with Rountree’s somewhat star-less resume seems like a recipe for something more reliable than a home-cooked meal at mama’s house—a devastating left hook that’ll put the contender’s lights out.