UFC 307 Report: Was the greatness of Alex Pereira enough to save a lackluster card?
UFC 307 is in the books and Alex Pereira remains the king of the light heavyweight division.
This past Saturday in Salt Lake City, Pereira retained his title with a fourth-round TKO over Khalil Rountree Jr. in a surprisingly competitive fight. Pereira now has three successful title defenses at 205 pounds and is the current frontrunner for Fighter of the Year honors.
But that’s not all that happened! In the co-main event, Julianna Peña reclaimed the women’s bantamweight belt with a controversial decision win over Raquel Pennington. On top of that, Kayla Harrison picked up a big win, Jose Aldo lost another contentious decision, and a whole host of other stuff happened so with so much to talk about, let’s gather the MMA Fighting brain trust to discuss everything that happened at UFC 307.
1. What is your brief review of UFC 307?
Heck: Weird. Wacky. Wild. It was like having dinner at Olive Garden, enjoying the free salad and breadsticks, having a solid chicken parmesan entree that didn’t knock your socks off, but you just love you some chicken parm, and then having dessert at a five-star Michelin rated restaurant.
The Olive Garden take might be controversial depending on who you talk to, so that perfectly encapsulates a lot of the big storylines in the aftermath — bad judging, one of the worst refereeing performances in UFC history — but what Alex Pereira and Khalil Rountree Jr. did in that octagon was absolutely ridiculous. Pereira going through what he went through on the road to the fight, to not having his fastball, still finding a way to win on a night that was probably nowhere near his best, and then the incredible heart of Rountree on top of it. Absolutely unreal.
Lee: I’m going to double up on the weird angle here. Like, remember when the UFC used to have subtitles for their pay-per-views? Those were the days. This one would be “UFC 307: Weird, Wacky, and Wild.”
Wonky scores and refereeing, some deeply unsatisfying results, Carla Esparza and Alexander Hernandez getting cheered like they’re Anderson Silva, Court McGee finishing someone (!!!), it was just one strange occurrence after another. I don’t know if UFC 307 was good by your standard definition of that word, but it was memorable. We’ll be talking about this one for a while.
Martin: A great main event, an incredible knockout to cap off the prelims and then not much else to write home about.
On paper, UFC 307 wasn’t the most stacked card of the year, but there were still some notable names competing, but many of those failed to live up to expectations. Jose Aldo should never return to Utah. Kevin Holland breaking a rib (or whatever exactly happened to him) ended that fight and even Kayla Harrison as a 9-to-1 favorite didn’t maul Ketlen Vieira as most expected her to do. A controversial scorecard in the co-main event and then some truly awful refereeing didn’t help matters much.
Thankfully, Alex Pereira and Khalil Rountree Jr. saved the day and that’s ultimately what we’re going to remember most.
Meshew: In a word: adequate.
Opinions varied about UFC 307 beforehand with some saying the card was weak, while others thought it was weird but quite good. I was among the latter camp, and I’ll be honest, before the two title fights, the naysayers were looking a bit prescient. But then the co-main event between Peña and Pennington exceeded expectations, and the main event delivered an excellent nightcap.
In the end, this card was a little weird, and some of the results were goofy (more on that later), but a lot of meaningful action took place and things ended well. The UFC may not have a hit a home run, but they got on base.
2. What was the best part of the evening?
Meshew: It was the main event, duh.
As noted above, a lot of this card was goofy, and some of it was very dumb or frustrating, but the main event did not have those issues. At this point, Pereira is certified must-see TV, and while I think everyone anticipated that Rountree would at least play his role in delivering a fun fight, I don’t think many of us expected it to be as fun as it was for as long as it was.
Pereira is a cataclysmic force of nature in the cage who has run through past champions, but for nearly 20 minutes, the unsung Rountree found it in himself to match “Poatan.” Rountree did not survive against Pereira, but gave as good as he got for a good long time, even dropping the champ at one point. Rountree ultimately succumbed to the relentless barrage from Pereira but we all got to witness a man enter the crucible and find the best of himself. I don’t know about y’all, but that’s what I’m here for.
Lee: How great was it to see Carla Esparza get her flowers?
I know she’s not the most popular UFC champion ever—she is almost surely the least popular TWO-TIME UFC champion—and her straight-line wrestling style wasn’t exactly the stuff that Fight of the Night awards are made of. But Esparza is a pioneer of women’s MMA and someone who had a heck of a lot of success in the cage, with wins over a number of notable names including Rose Namajunas (twice), Yan Xiaonan, Marina Rodriguez, Michelle Waterson-Gomez, Alexa Grasso, and Virna Jandiroba.
She was the UFC’s first strawweight champion, and believe it or not, likely a future Hall of Famer. The crowd at Delta Center seemed to appreciate what Esparza gave to the game, and the tribute video put together for her was the icing on the cake.
Heck: The correct answer is obvious, so I’m going to go a direction nobody — and I mean NOBODY — thought I would go: Joaquin Buckley.
Yes, you read that right.
After delivering an all-time horrendous callout — and then getting continuous bad heat after constantly defending it — Buckley delivered an A+ night at the office on Saturday with a stunning third-round knockout of Stephen Thompson in a fight that was way more fun than most thought it may be.
On top of that, Buckley did the thing on the microphone. He put over champion Belal Muhammad and assumed upcoming challenger Shavkat Rahkmonov, then came through with a fantastic callout of Kamaru Usman. He may not get that fight, but it was the right name to drop, and an even better approach to it. The man is learning.
Martin: Alex Pereira just doing Alex Pereira things.
While Rountree wasn’t the most deserving contender, he was arguably still the most dangerous. This is the man who flattened kickboxing legend Gokhan Saki just a few years ago, and he came out ready to add Pereira’s head to his mantle. But Pereira was having none of it. He allowed Rountree to get off to a fast start, exerting a whole lot of energy and constantly whiffing on many of his biggest punches.
Like Floyd Mayweather used to do so routinely during his boxing career, Pereira gave away a round or two so he could get a read on Rountree and then he started picking him apart. It was really masterful to watch Pereira start chipping away with calf kicks and then stabbing Rountree with one of the nastiest jabs we’ve seen since Georges St-Pierre retired. Once he saw that his prey was wounded, Pereira truly transformed into the predator.
This may not go down as his biggest win but it’s arguably Pereira’s most mature performance to date and that was awe-inspiring to witness. Oh and it’s just his third title defense inside six months. Hello, Fighter of the Year!
3. What was your least favorite part of the evening?
Lee: Unfortunately, for whatever reason, the denizens of Salt Lake City sought to balance out their respect for Esparza with a bizarre amount of vitriol for her opponent Tecia Pennington.
It has to be noted that their motivation for booing Pennington was likely their disagreement with the decision (including a debatable 30-27 score in Pennington’s favor), but that negativity spilled over in the worst way when Pennington used her post-fight speech time to dedicate her fight to Breast Cancer Awareness and her recently deceased grandmother. Yes, the fans continued to boo as Pennington mentioned her grandmother who died from breast cancer.
The most optimistic read of the situation is that the majority of the audience couldn’t hear what Pennington was saying and were planning to boo no matter what she said, but maybe... don’t do that? Listen first?
Whatever the reason, it made the good people of Utah come off as soulless demons on the broadcast.
Heck: Yes, the judging was bad, and I believe Raquel Pennington and Jose Aldo should’ve gotten their hands raised, and you can certainly make a case that Carla Esparza’s swan song should’ve ended happier.
But it’s referee Dave Seljestad, and it’s not all that close.
Refereeing as a whole continues has gotten a lot worse in 2024. The third person in the cage just doesn’t want to put themselves in a position to impact the result of a fight, I get it, but what Seljestad did in the Cesar Almeida vs. Ihor Potieria fight was inexcusable. This isn’t hyperbole, Seljestad made a case of having the worst showing from a referee I’ve ever seen in a UFC fight. Almeida delivered four eye pokes, and a low blow to Potieria, and not only did a point not get taken, but Seljestad didn’t even deliver a performative stern warning. Seljestad went on to create awkward separations and took the headlines fully away from the fighters.
I hate to be that guy, but he either needs to go back to referee school and brush up, or he should find a new line of work.
Martin: My colleague Mr. Heck is correct with his criticism of referee Dave Seljestad — that was just horrendous — but I’ll single out Julianna Peña for fumbling the ball so badly after she won a title most didn’t believe she deserved.
After “beating” Raquel Pennington in the co-main event, Pena had the chance to start building towards her inevitable title defense against Kayla Harrison but instead she just completely ignored the No. 1 contender and instead called for a fight against somebody who’s been retired for over 16 months.
Maybe Amanda Nunes eventually comes back, or perhaps she just stays retired, but right now she’s not even on the active roster. At best if Nunes declared her comeback today, she still needs at least six months of drug testing before she could fight, and the UFC is obviously setting up a fight between Pena and Harrison. The production team even had a split screen set up showing Harrison backstage for her immediate reaction and Pena still somehow whiffed! For somebody who spent all week claiming she was a better representative for the women’s bantamweight division, Pena walked away from UFC 307 with a controversial win and then asked for a fight that probably won’t happen. Way to go.
Meshew: All of these choices are excellent, but they’re not the right one. There is only “worst thing” that happened Saturday, and it should be everyone’s least favorite thing: Mario Bautista.
Jose Aldo is one of six greatest fighters in MMA history. “Living Legend” is a term that gets bandied about too often but it absolutely applies to “The King of Rio.” But despite this reality, Aldo has not leveraged his legend status in the final years of his career to cherry-pick fights like other have (*cough* looking at you, Jon Jones *cough*). Instead, Aldo is willing to give no-name up-and-comers their shot at a legend. He is an honorable man.
And in the lead up to this fight, Bautista proclaimed he would also be honorable. At the pre-fight press conference, Bautista promised there would be blood in the fight. But when the time came and his soul was put to the test, Bautista blinked. Instead of delivering the blood and guts he promised, Bautista grabbed a leg and desperately held onto a clinch.
Setting aside the fact that per the scoring criteria, Aldo 100 percent should have won that fight, everything about this was terrible. Bautista did not make a single fan with that performance and very likely lost many of them. And on top of it, at least when Merab Dvalishvili did the same thing to Aldo, we all kind of knew he’d go on to fight for the belt.
We wasted one of the few remaining Aldo fights on an opponent who promised us steak and delivered a cowpatty. Bummer.
4. Did anything surprise you?
Lee: Yeah, Court McGee finishing a fight!
In a stat that sounds crazy but actually shouldn’t be the least bit surprising, McGee submitted Tim Means to pick up his first finish since locking in an arm-triangle on Ryan Jensen at UFC 121 in 2010. UFC 121! That actually happened on Oct. 23 of that year, so McGee was close to going 14 years without a win via knockout or submission.
The Ogden native fought in his home state for the first time since 2016 and one can only credit the glorious Utah air for activating McGee’s dormant killer instinct. Twenty-three UFC fights, three submission wins in that time, one magical evening.
Heck: Not really, because it’s 2024 and very few things could. So I’ll take this a different, and more disgusting direction — the blood booger.
Khalil Rountree is getting his flowers from the Salt Lake City crowd for his efforts against Alex Pereira. Mid-sentence, a red, slimy, thick, gooey, blood strand that can be compared to the little kid from Big Daddy spitting on the ground after eating a dozen packets of ketchup. Rountree then, with full class, put a towel in front of the ooze, carried on with his post-fight interview with Joe Rogan and soaked in the applause.
It was disgusting to watch live, but in a weird way, it was a poetic conclusion to the night, the fight, and the Rountree build to this ultimate challenge.
Meshew: Joaquin Buckley did the thing!
Mike already spoke on this so I won’t elaborate too much, but I’ve been pretty hard on Buckley this year (deservedly so) for just about everything he’s done outside of the cage. His bad callout of Conor McGregor, to then starting an ill-informed beef with beloved fighter Cub Swanson, and sort of hinting at fighting Daniel Cormier over nothing, was all a showcase in how to alienate fans. But then UFC 307 came around and he totally redeemed himself!
Not only did Buckley finish Stephen Thompson, but he had to dig deep to do it as the fight was tougher than expected. And then the Kamaru Usman callout was excellent for all the reasons Mike stated. I hope Buckley gets that matchup and he keeps this newfound energy heading into 2025.
Martin: Jon Anik nearly jumping out of his seat to tackle referee Dave Seljestad during the Cesar Almeida vs. Ihor Potieria fight was awesome.
Generally speaking, Anik is the voice of reason in the broadcast booth because he’s the play-by-play man — his job involves calling the action, and he usually leaves the bombastic overreactions for Daniel Cormier or Joe Rogan as color commentators. But there was a moment on Saturday night when Anik was essentially seething with anger watching Seljestad pause the fight on four occasions for eye pokes yet never actually warning Almeida for the fouls much less deducting any points.
Then Seljestad just started separating the fighters any time they got clinched up against the cage. It seriously felt like Anik was about to pull a Khabib Nurmagomedov except he would be jumping into the cage to dish out some punishment to a woefully poor referee.
5. What is your biggest question coming out of the event?
Heck: What are the matchmakers thinking when it comes to Jose Aldo? Sean Shelby and Mick Maynard are not good at their jobs, they are excellent at them — at least, 95 percent of the time. When it comes to Aldo, it has been absolutely brutal.
I stand by my take that booking Aldo against Merab Dvalishvili at UFC 278 may be the worst matchmaking in the history of the bantamweight division. With his career (at the time) winding down, and riding a three-fight win streak, Aldo fighting Aljamain Sterling for the title was absolutely the correct move to make. Instead, Aldo got Merab’d despite defending all of the now-current champ’s takedowns, and Sterling ended up fighting a one-armed T.J. Dillashaw at UFC 280 two months later. Super bad across the board.
Then, Aldo fights out his deal in Brazil at UFC 301 against Jonathan Martinez. Didn’t love the booking, but I got it considering the circumstances. Aldo wins, becomes a free agent, and elects to return to the promotion. So what do we do? Put him in a no-win situation against Mario Bautista. As I’ve been saying since the fight was booked, didn’t get this one at all, especially after beating Martinez. I thought Aldo won, Bautista, at least as the scorecard reads, did win. And what does he gain outside of a win bonus (which is obviously important)? Not a damn thing but a bunch of detractors because of how he did it, which many believed was his only chance to do so.
At this point, the Aldo fighting for a UFC title again dream is likely dead. So if we don’t get Aldo vs. Dominick Cruz next, what in the blue hell are we doing here?
Lee: Did anyone raise their stock more than Khalil Rountree Jr.?
Even in defeat, Rountree deserves a ton of respect. Not only did he stand and bang with the UFC’s scariest striker, he landed plenty of shots of his own, several of which would have knocked out 90 percent of the roster. Plenty of us were looking past Rountree to future marquee matchups for Pereira, but Rountree proved he’s a star in his own right.
I can see him taking a post-championship fight career path similar to that of Anthony Smith. When Smith lost an uninspiring decision to Jon Jones, it was easy to write him off. All he’s done since is fight a dozen more times with plenty of Fight Night headliners and main card appearances to his name. If that’s what lies ahead for Rountree, that ain’t bad.
Meshew: How are so many championship-level fighters SO bad at promotion? And when is the UFC going to finally do something about it? To be fair, this isn’t just about this event, but it’s the culmination of an incredibly frustrating year of new champions.
When Ilia Topuria knocked out Alexander Volkanovski, he immediately started talking lightweight and dismissing featherweight challengers. Sean O’Malley tried to dismiss Merab, but ultimately had to give in to public sentiment. After finally winning the title Belal Muhammad tried to pivot to Kamaru Usman despite the entire world wanting the Shavkat Rakhmonov fight. And in the past two events, Merab had the most tone-deaf answer possible when the UFC tried to set up the Umar Nurmagomedov fight, and Peña had the atrocious callout of Amanda Nunes when pretty obviously she’s fighting Kayla Harrison next.
2024 has been a banner year for new champions being completely unable to read the room. These sorts of things at best make the fighter look silly and at worst alienate fans and give the appearance that you’re ducking someone. This is Day One promoting and half the current UFC champions have failed egregiously.
Martin: Did we just witness the end of Stephen “Wonderboy” Thompson as a viable top 15 welterweight?
Despite a valiant effort early, Thompson’s night still ended with him face first on the canvas after Joaquin Buckley unloaded a massive right hand that put him down and out in the third round. The knockout drops Thompson to 1-4 in his past four appearances and none of those losses were particularly close.
At 41, Thompson’s days as a perennial top 10 contender were likely over no matter what, and he was probably only maintaining gatekeeper status even with a win, but now there’s a world where he just slips out of the rankings all together — a position he’s maintained for the better part of the past decade. Thompson says he’s just as spry now as he was at 25, but the results say different.
6. How are we going to remember UFC 307?
Meshew: We’ll remember UFC 307 as the night Jamahal Hill finally won the trash-talk war against Alex Pereira.
JK. Nothing that man loves more than getting dunked on, apparently.
Saturday was the day Pereira bodied two people in one night.
Heck: Again, the answer is obvious, so I’ll go under the radar again. I’ll obviously remember the main event, but I’ll also recall this as a night where both Carla Esparza and Alexander Hernandez were given standing ovations by a huge UFC audience on the same card.
Esparza isn’t usually a fighter showered with cheers, and it’s very tough to please a live UFC crowd, even if it’s the final time you step in the octagon. “Cookie Monster” deserved every cheer, every clap, every bit of positivity she got as she capped off one of the more undervalued careers ever in women’s MMA.
And for Hernandez, the man has been an enemy of the state since the press conference prior to his knockout loss to Donald Cerrone. Hernandez has had one of the weirdest UFC careers I’ve seen since I started covering the sport. He knocks out Beneil Dariush in his short-notice UFC debut and is immediately a top 15 guy in the toughest division in MMA. The man, now six years into his UFC career, might now be getting a rare second chance to make an impression with a lot of positive momentum following a win in a fun fight with Austin Hubbard.
Lee: The card that put the women’s bantamweight division back on track. Seriously.
Combat sports needs personalities, and love her or hate her, Julianna Peña is one of them. And agree with the decision or not, she is once again a UFC champion. Her call for an Amanda Nunes trilogy was equal parts absurd, annoying, and—depending on your perspective—hilarious, and even though that fight unequivocally shouldn’t happen, it was a great way to troll Kayla Harrison.
For Harrison’s part, she impressed against a battle-tested Ketlen Vieira, coming on strong in the third round to cement her standing as the No. 1 contender at 135 pounds. Peña brushing her off should only increase the anticipation for their inevitable grudge match.
And then there’s Pennington, who suddenly became a tragic hero after pummeling Peña in the championship rounds, but still falling short on the scorecards. Fans have never been on her side more than they were on Saturday and that should carry over into her next fight—and possibly a rematch with Peña someday.
Bantamweight is intriguing again!
Martin: It’s the night where Alex Pereira cemented himself as the 2024 Fighter of the Year and one of the UFC’s biggest stars (not that he wasn’t already).
Champions rarely compete more than twice a year these days, and many times it’s only once, but Pereira has now fought and defended his belt three times in the past six months. He demolished Jamahal Hill to cap off UFC 300 in April and then did the same to Jiri Prochazka just two months later while still nursing a broken toe. Pereira waited a whole three months to return to action before vanquishing Rountree on Saturday.
There was a time when Pereira was only supposed to be the guy brought in to give Israel Adesanya a new challenge after he wiped out the entire middleweight division. Now less than three years later — yes, seriously he just debuted in November 2021 — Pereira is one of the faces of the UFC.
At 37, it’s tough to say how much time Pereira has left but enjoy every moment because what we’re witnessing right now is the ascendancy of somebody who could go down as an all-time great.