With UFC 307 less than two months away and no main event announced, speculation was beginning to mount about what the UFC would do for the show since so many of its main event-caliber fighters were occupied.
Dana White, the company's president/CEO, gave the answer via social media on Friday when he announced, perhaps not surprisingly in retrospect, that light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira will defend his belt in the main event against Khalil Rountree Jr. on Oct. 5 in Salt Lake City.
This bout will be Pereira's third of 2024 and his fourth in a calendar year. His recent fights include:
- UFC 295 (Nov. 11, 2023, New York): Pereira knocked out Jiri Prochazka in the second round.
- UFC 300 (April 13, 2024, Las Vegas): Pereira stopped former champion Jamahal Hill in the first round.
- UFC 303 (June 29, 2024, Las Vegas): Pereira won by second-round knockout in a rematch with Prochazka.
Pereira vs Rountree! #UFC307 from the @deltacenter, Utah on October 5th!@StateofSport pic.twitter.com/EJJcjJgUMf
— danawhite (@danawhite) August 16, 2024
In the co-main event, Raquel Pennington will make the first defense of her women's bantamweight championship when she faces former champion Julianna Peña.
Pennington won the vacant title on Jan. 20 in Toronto at UFC 297 when she won a decision over Mayra Bueno Silva.
Pereira has stepped forward repeatedly to save the day for the UFC when it didn't have a main event for a pay-per-view show. It took White a long time to make the main event for UFC 300, and eventually, he settled on Pereira versus Hill, announcing that following the completion of UFC 298.Then, when Conor McGregor pulled out of UFC 303 against Michael Chandler with a broken pinkie toe, Pereira again stepped up.
Rountree was scheduled to fight Hill at UFC 303 before he was provisionally suspended by Combat Sports Anti-Doping and the Nevada Athletic Commission for self-reporting the mistaken use of a supplement that contained a prohibited substance, DHEA. CSAD gave Rountree a two-month suspension and the NSAC gave him four-and-a-half months. It ends in September and NSAC officials will announce it at their next regularly scheduled meeting.
Jeff Novitzky, the UFC's vice president of anti-doping compliance, said Rountree self-reported a "couple of days of DHEA use via a supplement." Novitzky said he never would have been caught had he not self-reported. Dr. Daniel Eichner, the head of the Sports Medicine Research Testing Laboratory (SMRTL), a WADA-accredited lab in Utah, told CSAD and NSAC that the amount Rountree used before reporting himself was not sufficient to be performance-enhancing.
The owner of the company that sent Rountree the supplements described it as a mistake, according to the UFC's release announcing the suspension.
"He really was able to produce the jar [of supplements], the receipts for when he got it and how many pills were left to verify that he took it for a very little period of time," Novitzky said.
Also announced for the show are a pair of bantamweight fights and a welterweight bout. In the women's division, Kayla Harrison will make her second UFC appearance when she faces Ketlen Vieira. In the men's class, the legendary former champion Jose Aldo will face Mario Bautista. In an intriguing welterweight battle, Stephen "Wonderboy" Thompson will face Joaquin Buckley.