Khalil Rountree targeting ‘Big fight’ in Octagon return against winner of UFC 311 grudge clash

According to his head coach, Khalil Rountree will likely factor into this weekend’s grudge matchup between former champions, Jamahal Hill and Jiri Prochazka at UFC 311 — with John Wood revealing his student is planning a return against that pairing’s winner.

Rountree, the current number seven rated light heavyweight challenger, has yet to return to action since October, most recently headlining UFC 307 in his impromptu premiere title charge since his Octagon tenure began.

And taking former two-weight champion and dominant light heavyweight titleholder, Alex Pereira to the fourth round in a bloody back-and-forth in Salt Lake City, Syndicate MMA mainstay, Khalil Rountree would drop an eventual TKO loss to the Sao Paulo finisher at the Octagon fence.

Reflecting on his defeat to the Brazilian star, Rountree claimed he was “happy” despite the loss to the incumbent, revealing he believes he is where he needs to be and should be amongst the light heavyweight pile.

Khalil Rountree likely to face Hill – Prochazka winner after UFC 311

However, as far as a return for him is concerned, according to the above-mentioned, Wood, Rountree will likely await the victor of this weekend’s UFC 311 pairing between Hill and Prochazka next.

Yeah, we’re definitely talking,” John Wood told Ariel Helwani for Uncrowned. “He’s (Khalil Rountree) back in the gym now. He’s back in training. He’s healed up. So he’s starting to kind of get back on the horse and get everything going and firing in all the right directions. There has been talk. I think we have a big one coming up that the result of that fight might play out to see who would be next for us out of Jiri (Prochazka) and Jamahal (Hill). So that’s been talked about. There’s some other names that have been thrown around that I think make sense. But I think that Khalil is very interested in that fight. So that one’s going to be, I think, might be a tell of who we’re getting next.”