“Bodyguard for Muhammad Ali” – Khalil Rountree Reflects on Father’s Murder Ahead of UFC 307
Khalil Rountree opened up about losing his father at a very early age and the impact it had on his upbringing.
This weekend, ‘The War Horse’ will step into the main event spotlight at UFC 307 in Salt Lake City determined to hand Alex Pereira his first loss at light heavyweight and take the 205-pound title back home with him.
Ahead of their anticipated clash in The Crossroads of the West, Rountree spoke at length about his father who had managed some of the biggest acts in the music business, including Boyz II Men and New Edition. Khalil Rountree Sr. even worked as a personal bodyguard for legendary pugilist Muhammad Ali.
Sadly, he was murdered in 1992 when Rountree Jr. was just two years old.
“When I was two years old, my father was murdered,” Rountree said during the UFC 307 Countdown show. “He was a manager for Boyz II Men and New Addition. There was a time in his career where he was a personal bodyguard for Muhammad Ali.
“At his funeral, I remember there being hundreds, if not thousands, of people. When I think about that, you’ve got to be a certain type of person to have complete strangers and just a massive amount of people coming to your funeral to honor your life” (h/t talkSPORT).
The lack of a father figure took khalil rountree jr. down a dangerous path
Without a father there to help guide him, Rountree found himself falling into destructive behaviors. He was smoking and drinking heavily while also taking prescription medications — anything he could to fight through the pain he was dealing with.
Fortunately, ‘The War Horse’ decided it was time to do something to save his life rather than letting it continue to slip away.
“I didn’t have the courage to face certain challenges because I didn’t have anyone that stood there and let me know ‘Everything would be okay.’ It kind of held me back a bit,” Rountree continued. “That led me down a path of self-destruction. I was smoking two packs of cigarettes a day. I was drinking alcohol non-stop. I was taking random prescription pills just trying to numb the pain.
“I remember stepping on a scale and it said 305lbs. There was a night where I was trying to fall asleep, and I could I just feel my heart doing really, really weird things that it shouldn’t have been doing. There was a moment where I thought, ‘Okay, this is the night. I’m going to die in my sleep’. That was when I started to think about what I can to do to hold onto my life. That’s what drove me to be more open-minded about things that involved fitness and health. MMA was perfect for me.”
Now, Rountree Jr. is on the cusp of becoming a world champion, but to do it, he’ll have to go through one of the most dangerous strikers in all of combat sports.
