Khalil Rountree Jr. ͏is about t͏o͏ face the biggest͏ fi͏gh͏t ͏of his car͏eer aga͏ins͏t͏ Al͏ex Per͏eira ͏͏for t͏he ͏l͏ig͏ht h͏͏eavywe͏ig͏ht͏ title at the U͏FC 3͏0͏7. With͏ a 14-6-0 UFC record, ‘͏The War Horse͏’ has en͏du͏red a͏ long͏ an͏d difficult͏ journey.͏ ͏F͏ro͏m a ͏͏teenager who was overweight, bullied, and addicted to alcohol t͏o no͏w͏ headli͏ning an UFC event, 34-year-old’s journey is a perfect example of perseverance.

Since childhood, Rountree Jr’s life was surrounded by tragic losses. In 1992, when the fighter was just two years old, his father, Roderick, was murdered during a botched robbery attempt at the Chicago hotel while he was working as tour manager for the Grammy Award-winning group, Boyz II Men. “Khalil was more than just our tour manager. He was a father figure and friend to us,” the group had said in a statement back then after they paused their tour to attend the funeral.

In a ‘UFC 307 Countdown’ video on September 29 this year, the fighter revealed the plaque he was gifted by the group commemorating his deceased father. “Presented to Khalil ‘Burger John’ Rountree to commemorate the sale of more than 8,000,000 copies of the Motown Records Casette and CD ‘II’,” read the engraved message on the plaque. Roderick reportedly also worked as a personal bodyguard for Muhammad Ali, as revealed by his son, who went down a path of self-destruction in his formative years amidst the lack of a father figure.

“I would smoke two packs of cigarettes a day on top of gorging on fast food. Every day, I’d drink a liter or two of Dr. Pepper. I was doing nothing good for myself health-wise. I felt I was going to die in my sleep. It’s really strange when you have a 19-year-old who believes he may never wake up once he goes to sleep, but that’s where I was,” said Rountree in one of his conversations with the media. H͏e further explained how ͏he used to avoid vegetables͏ because he found them bland.͏

At the time, he had also taken up some odd jobs that included selling merchandise for bands on tour. However, as his life wasted away before his own eyes, the future UFC star was struck with a harsh realization. “I wasn’t really chasing my dream. I was just trying to help someone chase their own. I always thought I had more in me than just selling clothes and packing the van,” said Rountree Jr. And that’s when the 300 pound kid decided to turn his life around. His brother—an aspiring MMA fighter—took the young boy to the gym…

“The way I got into fighting was that my brother was training in MMA, and he’d been wanting to introduce me to his new hobby, so I joined the gym with him because, at the time, I was 300 pounds. So I just joined the gym and found that I had a hidden love for fighting and a love for training and it just happened by accident – just because I wanted to lose a few pounds.”

“I was never in any competitive sports growing up,” he says, “so MMA was my first sport and I’m always learning and developing. I hear from peers that I have great potential and all that, but it’s up to me to prove that to myself,” the fighter revealed. Having said that, if we were to talk about his nationality then its quite obvious that he belongs to the United States but his ethnicity is quite different.

The fighter considers himself to be African-American but his surname ‘Rountree’ has been exclusive to the United States, England, and Ireland. Regardless, the UFC star wants the world to consider him American. Well, now that we know about his ethnicity, let’s have a deeper look at his religion…

Khalil Rountree’s religion

Taking into account his first name, many guess that follower to be the follower of Islam. However, as per a training montage he shared recently, his post’s caption read, “church”, leading many to believe he’s Christian. Additionally, Rountree Jr had shared another photo—from his wedding—at a Thai temple. Given how lowkey the fighter is about his personal life, it’s tough to ascertain his religious beliefs as of now…

Update: In an interview with TMZ, Boyz II Men stars Shawn Stockman and Nathan Morris talked about Rountree Jr’s father and his upcoming UFC 307 bout.

Stockman stated, “We used to see each other a lot more when [Khalil] was younger. But obviously, time happens. He went on to become this amazing, incredible UFC fighter which was a shock, in a pleasant way, to me. Just to see him, knowing him as a baby and remembering him as a little baby, and seeing him grow up to be this incredible athletic, incredibly strong a** whooper. It’s amazing.”

“The apple doesn’t fall too far from the tree. His father was also very much a person that you didn’t want to F-around and find out about either. So it’s in his blood. To some degree, it’s not that surprising. I just didn’t think that it’d get to the point where he’d be a professional fighter. We are very proud of him…and I know his dad is very, very proud,” he further added.

Morris, on the other hand said, “We gonna try to watch it or either tape it. We have about three shows in a row the next couple of days…It’s just amazing. It really, really is.”