JRE MMA Show #64 with Khalil Rountree Jr.

Joe Rogan (0:04)

And boom. How are you?

Khalil Rountree Jr. (0:05)

Good, man.

Joe Rogan (0:06)

Thanks for doing this.

Khalil Rountree Jr. (0:06)

Thank you for having me on.

Joe Rogan (0:08)

I was so impressed with your performance from that past UFC that I had to talk to you. I've seen guys make, you were always a very dangerous striker, obviously from the GoKan Sake fight, everybody got to see that.

But to see how fluid you were against a beast like Eric Anders. I mean, Eric Anders is a scary cat.

He's coming for blood, right? You were so fast, man. It was crazy to watch. It was really interesting.

Khalil Rountree Jr. (0:35)

Thank you.

Joe Rogan (0:37)

If you had to give yourself a percentage leap that you've gone up over the last year, what do you think it would be?

Khalil Rountree Jr. (0:44)

Compared to like...

Joe Rogan (0:45)

Who you were before that.

Khalil Rountree Jr. (0:49)

Not that high of a leap. I mean, that performance for me was, like I feel good about it, but that was only four months.

So I'm like, I know that there's so much more for me to gain. That's why I'm like, yeah, I gotta go back. So the leap, not too much, because I know there's still a lot more to go.

Joe Rogan (1:06)

A lot more, yeah. So you've decided, so for people who don't understand what we're talking about, you went to Thailand. You spent four months down in Thailand.

And dude, we were fighting like a tie box. It was crazy. Like Mark Delagrate, who works in the production truck, he's the guy who picks out the instant replays. He and I talk back and forth sometimes while the fight's going on. And Mark, you know, with his heavy Boston accent, like, dude, classic tie. He's classic tie stance. And he would just sit light on that front leg.

That inside leg kick was so ferocious. It was fun to watch, man.

Khalil Rountree Jr. (1:40)

So it's just, usually wherever I go, I've always been good at just like kind of absorbing the culture. I'm a guy like, I can go into a room full of people and I can just kind of pick up what the energy's like. And that's another reason why I wanted to go to Thailand.

So just the way that they train and the discipline, the power, but the relaxation, like everything I was learning, just like, man, there's so much more to Muay Thai. So I would just, even the days that I didn't train, I'd just sit around and just watch these guys because Muay Thai is more than just punching, kicking elbows, man, there's balance. You know what I mean?

There's repetition, like how many kicks are you throwing? You know, the guys at the stadiums, they're like, they're kick, kick, kick, kick.

Joe Rogan (2:27)

Yeah.

Khalil Rountree Jr. (2:28)

So I was able to learn a lot, man, and there's still a lot to go.

Joe Rogan (2:32)

It's beautiful to see someone on that pursuit. And I think it's, it's much like Roger Mayweather said about boxing, like most people don't know shit about boxing. And what he said, that's like, if anybody is gonna say that, he's gonna say that. Because there are levels and layers and there's, there's paths to go down. And it's interesting when you see someone like committed with a very, like a very specific style, like your, like your adoption of that Muay Thai style. So it's so effective as a striking style. It's really interesting when you think of all the different ways to attack with striking, that that one way became very particularly successful.

Khalil Rountree Jr. (3:11)

You know what, before I even started training MMA as a whole, my first mixed martial, my first martial arts class was a Muay Thai class.

I knew that I wanted to train Muay Thai or learn Muay Thai.

And so since I've started, I always thought like, yeah, I want to go there. You know, just maybe it's cool. But Muay Thai has always been my thing, but I had never really learned it like the actual way, you know, like from the root of where it comes from. I always just kind of like passed down or like Brazilian style Muay Thai, you know, like shoot the box type stuff. So that's completely different from stadium Muay Thai. And most people don't know shit about stadium Muay Thai, like unless you go to Bangkok.

Joe Rogan (3:58)

Let's characterize it for people. You do say that that Kuritiba style is just way more aggressive, different way they utilize techniques. Yeah, it's not light on the front leg. So sometimes they are like more, Shogun would be light on his front leg a little bit.