Khalil Rountree: Ex-UFC champ Sean Strickland apologized for being a 'dumbass' when he started beef

SALT LAKE CITY – It appears the beef between Khalil Rountree and Sean Strickland is over – at least from Rountree’s side.

Rountree (14-5 MMA, 9-5 UFC) challenges light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira (11-2 MMA, 8-1 UFC) in Saturday’s UFC 307 (pay-per-view, ESPNews, ESPN+) headliner at Delta Center in Salt Lake City.

Strickland is in Salt Lake City to help Pereira prep for Rountree, whom he’s never been fond of. His issue with him started in 2022 when he went off on Rountree for crying during one of his post-fight scrums. Rountree downplayed his comments, claiming he didn’t know who Strickland was.

Rountree says Strickland approached him a couple of months ago to apologize, but that didn’t stop the former UFC middleweight champion from recently going off on Rountree again, calling him a “liberal c*ck beta male,” as well as accusing him of being in a cult.

“Honestly, the last interaction that I had with Sean Strickland was at the UFC PI. It was literally the day after Dan Ige stepped in for that fight on like three hours, four hours’ notice, or something like that,” Rountree told MMA Junkie and other reporters at Wednesday’s UFC 307 media day. “Out of the blue, Sean Strickland came up to me. He approached me, and he just said, like, ‘Khalil, I apologize. I’m a dumbass. I actually kind of like you. I think you’re liberal, but overall, I like you’ or ‘I respect you,’ something along those lines.

“So what I took it as is, almost like squashing whatever beef, or just saying, like, ‘Look dude, I am who I am. I’m going to say what I’m going to say, but I’m coming here to personally shake your hand, tell you I think you’re a liberal to a certain level, I respect you.’ It was like that. So I took it as like, OK, you’re coming here to kind of make the peace. I left it at that. So now, anything moving forward, anything that’s said, I’ve got that in my memory bank, so I know that there’s really no issue. It’s really just talk, and I won’t concern myself with it.”

Strickland is expected to get his desired title-fight rematch with UFC middleweight champion Dricus Du Plessis, who edged him out by split decision in their first fight in January,

For more on the card, visit MMA Junkie’s event hub for UFC 307.