{"id":826018,"date":"2026-07-27T01:50:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-27T01:50:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/826018\/"},"modified":"2026-07-27T01:50:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-27T01:50:09","slug":"coach-pulled-khalil-rountree-jr-from-ufc-abu-dhabi-dude-this-isnt-a-go","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/826018\/","title":{"rendered":"Coach pulled Khalil Rountree Jr. from UFC Abu Dhabi: \u2018Dude, this isn\u2019t a go\u2019"},"content":{"rendered":"

UFC Abu Dhabi is in the books and while there were a number of great fights and electrifying performances, Magomed Ankalaev\u2019s main event against Bogdan Guskov was not one of them. Ankalaev remains stuck in second gear<\/a> even when facing a late replacement like Guskov who was effectively teed up for \u201cBig Ank\u201d to destroy. Instead, we watched five slow rounds<\/a> where neither man put their foot on the gas.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a shame, because we were supposed to get Magomed Ankalaev vs. Khalil Rountree Jr.,<\/a> and Rountree Jr. has a much better resume when it comes to fighting with some goddamn chutzpah. We still don\u2019t know what injury stopped Khalil from traveling to Abu Dhabi, but his coach John Wood from Syndicate MMA recently revealed that he was the one who sat the American light heavyweight down and told him he had to pull out.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think it\u2019s gonna be that serious,\u201d Wood told Home of Fight regarding Rountree\u2019s injury. \u201cFortunately, we kind of escaped any kind of surgical stuff. But for sure, it was a hindrance in camp that it got to a point where he couldn\u2019t really do much. And in a fight that big, man, those are the decisions that it sucks.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe really didn\u2019t actually even want to [withdraw], he was gonna [fight],\u201d Wood continued. \u201cHe was full on and we\u2019d had the conversations. \u2018You know what? I\u2019m just gonna bite down and go.\u2019 I kinda made the decision of like, \u2018No, dude. This is too big of an opportunity, too big of a situation. You\u2019re fighting the number one contender. You might as well be fighting almost for a title at that point in time.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cGoing into that as bad as it was? Everybody fights injured, but there\u2019s injuries and things that are like, \u2018If I don\u2019t get this done in a round or two rounds, I\u2019m in trouble.\u2019 It\u2019s just not smart. So we sat down, had a talk. He was devastated. It\u2019s the first time ever, you know? It\u2019s the first time he\u2019s ever pulled out of a fight. It\u2019s the first time I\u2019ve ever had to say, \u2018Dude, I just don\u2019t think this is a go.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wood has seen some of his other Syndicate fighters take on fights while injured. Merab Dvalishvili recently revealed he fought Petr Yan last December with a badly injured knee.<\/a> He lost the title to Yan, a defeat that no doubt weighs on Wood\u2019s mind.<\/p>\n

\u201cI promised myself a while ago through some circumstances of watching guys fight in these situations that I\u2019ve got to make sure that voice is heard and my opinion is heard,\u201d Wood said. \u201cOf, you know, \u2018Hey, dude, I think that there\u2019s better options here, and that\u2019s something that I really kind of tried to to do this time.\u201d<\/p>\n

UFC Abu Dhabi definitely took a hit with Rountree\u2019s withdrawal, but the 36 year old \u201cWar Horse\u201d doesn\u2019t have too many more opportunities to earn himself another title shot at 205 pounds. With the division where it\u2019s at<\/a> now, there\u2019ll never be a better chance to capture gold \u2014 unless you do something silly like fight with a bad injury that leaves you with less than two rounds of fighting ability.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"UFC Abu Dhabi is in the books and while there were a number of great fights and electrifying…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":826019,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-826018","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826018","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=826018"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/826018\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/826019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=826018"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=826018"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=826018"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}