UFC Abu Dhabi is in the books and while there were a number of great fights and electrifying performances, Magomed Ankalaev’s main event against Bogdan Guskov was not one of them. Ankalaev remains stuck in second gear even when facing a late replacement like Guskov who was effectively teed up for “Big Ank” to destroy. Instead, we watched five slow rounds where neither man put their foot on the gas.
It’s a shame, because we were supposed to get Magomed Ankalaev vs. Khalil Rountree Jr., and Rountree Jr. has a much better resume when it comes to fighting with some goddamn chutzpah. We still don’t 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.
“I don’t think it’s gonna be that serious,” Wood told Home of Fight regarding Rountree’s injury. “Fortunately, 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’t really do much. And in a fight that big, man, those are the decisions that it sucks.”
“He really didn’t actually even want to [withdraw], he was gonna [fight],” Wood continued. “He was full on and we’d had the conversations. ‘You know what? I’m just gonna bite down and go.’ I kinda made the decision of like, ‘No, dude. This is too big of an opportunity, too big of a situation. You’re fighting the number one contender. You might as well be fighting almost for a title at that point in time.’”
“Going into that as bad as it was? Everybody fights injured, but there’s injuries and things that are like, ‘If I don’t get this done in a round or two rounds, I’m in trouble.’ It’s just not smart. So we sat down, had a talk. He was devastated. It’s the first time ever, you know? It’s the first time he’s ever pulled out of a fight. It’s the first time I’ve ever had to say, ‘Dude, I just don’t think this is a go.”
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. He lost the title to Yan, a defeat that no doubt weighs on Wood’s mind.
“I promised myself a while ago through some circumstances of watching guys fight in these situations that I’ve got to make sure that voice is heard and my opinion is heard,” Wood said. “Of, you know, ‘Hey, dude, I think that there’s better options here, and that’s something that I really kind of tried to to do this time.”
UFC Abu Dhabi definitely took a hit with Rountree’s withdrawal, but the 36 year old “War Horse” doesn’t have too many more opportunities to earn himself another title shot at 205 pounds. With the division where it’s at now, there’ll never be a better chance to capture gold — unless you do something silly like fight with a bad injury that leaves you with less than two rounds of fighting ability.
