Athletes
Jamahal Hill | A Return To Dominance
Former Light Heavyweight Champion Jamahal Hill Is Keen On Serving Up A Reminder Of How Great He Is When He Makes The Walk At UFC Fight Night: Hill vs Rountree Jr.
Jamahal Hill doesn’t mince his words. Whether he is talking about himself, his peers or the fight game, in general, “Sweet Dreams” keeps it real.
He feels like he is as good as he says he is, and he has a UFC title in his locker, as well as several highlights, to prove it. For all his bravado, he has almost always been gracious in defeat, particularly after Paul Craig and Jiří Procházka finished him. And after his loss to Procházka at UFC 311—a war he is proud of, despite the result—the former champ knew he had to tighten the screw at the risk of falling out of the light heavyweight title picture completely.
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That meant when his team felt like he wasn’t in a place to push past an injury, Hill heeded their advice, despite having a main event with Khalil Rountree Jr. on the books for April. Instead, the two are now set to battle in UFC’s first trip to Azerbaijan on June 21. Nearly six years since earning his contract on Dana White’s Contender Series, Hill is taking stock and seeing what it takes to not only ascend to the mountaintop, but stay there for a while, too.
“The biggest takeaways are just taking care of your body,” Hill told UFC.com. “Make sure you listen to your body, make sure your body is good and everything like that, and try to come into the fight the best you can, (because I’m) fighting the best in the world now. Certain things that I got away with before, I have to really, really buckle down on now.”
After pushing himself to return less than a year after tearing his Achilles tendon, he wasn’t able to find his rhythm before Alex Pereira connected with the left hook that ended UFC 300. A few months later, Hill looked in physically better shape ahead of UFC 311, despite the result, and the 34-year-old has always shown a propensity of learning from his mistakes.
Against Procházka, Hill fought well against the chaotic former champion. Despite dropping the first round, Hill found plenty of success and rode that momentum into the second round, which all the judges marked for Hill. As Procházka does, however, he caused and thrived in the chaos and connected with the finishing shots in the third round. At the highest level, the margins are both microscopic and massive, something of which Hill is well aware.
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“You have to make adjustments based off of what you see and what's happening in the fight,” he said. “This is a level everybody is fairly (good) at that, and then you're going to run into some guys that are really good at adjusting and really good at changing things up mid-fight. You gotta be ready for that, as well.”
When it comes to Rountree, Hill knows he needs to keep his focus for the entirety of the fight. Seven of Rountree’s nine UFC wins came via knockout, and the 34-year-old scored a knockdown on Pereira during his title bid at UFC 307.
The two were originally booked to fight in June 2024, and a year later, the two knockout artists are keen on beating each other and staying in and around the title picture.
“The biggest thing is that he’s always dangerous,” Hill said. “He comes, he throws, he throws with a lot of power, a lot of ferocity. He likes to be very, very aggressive. He’s kind of ruthless in the way that he comes at his opponents, so you got to be aware of that. But, for me, he's got to worry about everything. I have my own ferocity. I have my own speed. I believe I'm faster. I'm the taller, longer fighter, and I believe I have more experience against better competition.”
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While some would argue Rountree Jr. had more success against their mutual opponent in Pereira, Hill points to their other shared opponent: Johnny Walker.
In November 2018, Walker scored a vicious first-round knockout against Rountree in Argentina. That fight put Walker on a trajectory toward the top 10 before he found some difficulties against elite competition.
Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree Jr. | UFC Journey
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Jamahal Hill vs Khalil Rountree Jr. | UFC Journey
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More than three years later, Walker squared off against Hill in Hill’s first main event assignment. The Michigan native made the most of the spotlight and knocked Walker out cold midway through the first round.
Nonetheless, Hill understands MMA math is a faulty equation. What he trusts in is the work he put in during training camp and how he is feeling, both mentally and physically.
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“He's got my undivided attention, which unfortunately for him is a bad place to be,” Hill said.
It’s all about gold for Hill. He feels like he has the skills and the knockout power to put himself right back into the thick of the wide-open title picture at 205 pounds. It’s that power and opportunistic timing that got him in a position to fight Glover Teixeira for the belt in the first place after Jan Błachowicz and Magomed Ankalaev fought to a draw in December 2022.
That fight might seem like forever ago, but it still serves as a reminder of what Hill is capable of when he is on his game. On June 21, he’s out to serve up another reminder of why he carries the distinction of a champion.
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“Sweet Dreams (is) coming back to form, getting back to that championship form and just back to dominance,” he said. “That's the main thing I love to get back to.
“I'm looking to return the dominance to where I was before.”
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