Alex Pereira certainly didn’t have it all his own way at last weekend’s UFC 307 but he remains undisputed at the summit of the 205-pound division following Saturday night’s fourth-round finish of Khalil Rountree. 

Perhaps aware of the type of knockout power that had previously finished another former Glory light heavyweight champion in Gokhan Saki several years ago, UFC light heavyweight champion Pereira was cautious in the early stages of the fight — allowing Rountree to establish himself in the contest and, according to the judges at least, win the first two rounds in Salt Lake City.

By the fourth the Brazilian’s power had begun to tell and damage was worn all over Rountree’s face before he crumbled against the fence to a sequence of Pereira strikes to give him his third defence of the 205-pound title that he has held for less than a year.

But one man who was apparently not impressed was the former champion Jamahal Hill, who was knocked out by Pereira just over three minutes into their fight at UFC 300 in April, and who mimed a ‘yawn’ to the UFC cameras following the finish of the fight.

And speaking to the media, including The Mac Life, afterwards, Pereira wondered aloud if Hill is still feeling the effects of that particular fight.

“Maybe he just woke up from UFC 300,” Pereira said, via his translator.

Elaborating on the Rountree battle, Pereira said that his training camp was a difficult one in which he was faced with a number of setbacks.

“The fight was really tough, but only my team really knows how tough this camp was,” he said. “I went through a lot of stuff that nobody really knows about. I was Brazil over a month ago, I had some problems with my visa, I was going over to the consulate every single day trying to see if my passport was ready to be picked up.

“Finally made it back to the US, spent about a week in Connecticut, been here for three weeks, in that meantime I was on antibiotics. I had a fever, I had a bad throat, and a lot of things happened.”