Khalil Rountree Jr. is all set to go one-on-one against Alex Pereira for the light heavyweight throne at UFC 307. However, this won’t be an easy task. Since, in order to win the fight, Pereira has found an unlikely ally in Sean Strickland. ‘Poatan’ asked Strickland to be a part of his training camp, and ‘Tarzan’ was glad to offer his services to the champion.

This truly spiced up the title fight since ‘Tarzan’ and Rountree Jr. already have quite a history together. Strickland has often taken shots at ‘The War Horse’ during interviews or on social media. He has gone from calling him a cult member to a “liberal cck beta male” in one of his interviews. However, it seems like ‘Tarzan’ finally wants to bury the hatchet, as Rountree Jr. recently revealed. A move that shocked the challenger, as well as fans.

During the UFC 307 media day, ‘The War Horse’ dropped quite a bombshell when he revealed that Strickland had actually apologized to him for the past comments he made. While answering a question on Strickland helping Pereira train, Rountree Jr. revealed that he recently had a backstage interaction with ‘Tarzan’ at the Performance Institute in which the former middleweight champion apologized to Rountree Jr. for taking things too far.

‘The War Horse’ said, “Out of the blue, Sean Strickland comes up to me. He approached me, and he just said, ‘Khalil, just I apologize, I’m a dumb–s. I actually kind of like you. I think you’re liberal, but overall… I like you, or I respect you.’ Something along those lines. So what I took it as was like, almost squashing whatever beef.”

This was quite an unexpected move by Strickland and one that might’ve taken Rountree Jr. by surprise. But he cannot be blamed for being stunned by Strickland’s apology, as even fans couldn’t believe that a through-and-through trash talker like ‘Tarzan’ would ever apologize for the statements he often makes. As a result, fans were quick to share their reactions to the major claim.

Fans believe in Rountree’s claims

As soon as the video of Khalil Rountree Jr. talking about Sean Strickland reached the internet, it took no time for it to go viral within the MMA community. And why wouldn’t it go viral? Sean Strickland apologizing is quite a rare sight to see. It was so rare that some fans hardly believed the story told by ‘The War Horse.’ However, one statement made fans believe in the claim. What statement? The one about Rountree Jr. being a liberal. Since ‘Tarzan’ takes his politics too seriously. As some fans wrote, “I like you but I think you’re a liberal 100% is something Strickland would say LOL”, “The “I think you’re a liberal” makes us know he really did talk to D’Sean LOL,” and “Strickland just judges everybody based on politics and where they’re from doesn’t he?”

However, the claim also made others believe that Strickland is all hats but no cattle. Some users wrote that ‘Tarzan’ is just a keyboard warrior who chickened out the moment he met ‘The War Horse.’ This isn’t the first time he talked trash but he never got into a real fight. So some users wrote, “Sean turned into the biggest keyboard warrior,” “Sean is all talks,” and “Stricklands energy always switches when he sees this people in public.”

One user even claimed that Strickland would now deny having any such conversation with Khalil Rountree Jr. in order to preserve his bad-boy image. One that he portrays on the screen to keep fans entertained while his opponents are at bay. A technique followed by the likes of Sean O’Malley and Conor McGregor. The user wrote, “Incoming Sean video or tweet talking about how it didn’t go down like that.” Well, it surely was interesting to find out about a new side of Strickland. But what do you think? Is Rountree Jr. telling the truth? Or is this his way of playing mind games before UFC 307? Let us know in the comments.