Outside Source
“Sweet Dreams” struggled in his lastest outing at UFC Baku, where he lost a clear-cut unanimous decision to Khalil Rountree in the evening’s main event on June 21 in Azerbaijan. While Hill expected a more aggressive performance from his opponent, he was unable to do anything to force the action himself in the methodical 25-minute affair.
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“He wanted to knock on the door for a title shot, and he’s gonna be able to do that with this victory,” Hill said on his YouTube channel. “He had a game plan to attack my legs. He stuck to his game plan, didn’t move outside the game plan. The fight was a little more boring than I would have liked. I expected a little bit more of him to actually come after to me and [I thought] we were going to put more of a performance together. It is what it is. The onus is on me to go in and make fighters fight the fight that I want them to fight. That didn’t happen in this one.”
Ultimately, Rountree received scorecards of 49-46 50-45 and 50-45 in what was a fairly convincing victory. However, Hill thought the final tallies should have been closer than they were.
“To me in the moment, I thought that I had won the first round and the fifth round. I’ve watched the fight back. I still feel as though I won the first and the fifth round,” he said. “I think it was a pretty boring fight to score that one-sided. I know people want to see me lose as bad as possible … For example, I’ll use from my experience the Glover [Teixeira] fight. If that was a five-round domination, then the Glover fight should’ve been [50-40]. In order for you to be convincingly given every round like that, there should be more work put in.”
Hill took a five-round verdict over Teixeira to capture the 205-pound belt at UFC 283 in January 2023. He had to vacate the title after suffering a torn Achilles in a pickup basketball game, and the Grand Rapids, Michigan, native claims he hasn’t been the same since then. Additionally, a knee injury forced him to withdraw from a proposed booking against Carlos Ulberg at UFC 303.
“I know there was a lot made of me before the fight saying ‘Khalil’s not on my level.’ But to be honest, I haven’t been on my level,” Hill said. “I haven’t been on my level for quite some time. I think people severely underestimate the injuries that I’ve dealt with and the challenges that I’ve had to overcome with that. An Achilles tear to an athlete is a career ender in a lot of cases. If you compile that with the injuries I’ve also dealt with, the tears to the knees from trying to come back and force my way back in the timing that I did… I’ve gone against a lot of advice that I was given by my team and people close to me.”
Since his brief championship reign, Hill has dropped three straight in the Octagon, falling to former title holders Alex Pereira and Jiri Prochazka in addition to Rountree. While injuries are part of the story, “Sweet Dreams” admits that he also needs to improve his work ethic.
Hill: I Have to Grind Harder
“Before injuries, I was a natural. I’m a natural talent,” he said. “Things came naturally to me at a certain level. Before, I could hang around outside of camp — eat, do things the way I wanted to do them. Whenever I was in camp, I was able to work at a level that I feel put me in a very good position to go out and put on the performances I put on earlier in my career. My work and my output has to go up. I have to do more. I have to work harder, I have to grind harder … This last camp when I started I was probably 265 pounds. That goes into that work. I cannot spend camp trying to make weight.
“… I have to apologize to people that have supported me. I have to be better with how I take care of my body and how I work to improve and stay sharp with my body and with my skills. I will be on that. For now, I’m gonna take the time that I need to make sure that I can focus on my injuries, give them the time they need to get back to strength and feel like me again. I haven’t felt like myself in quite some time now .. I have to change the amount of work that I’m willing to do and the amount of push that I give in my preparation. I’m at a championship level and I must live like a champion.”
This article first appeared at Recent News on Sherdog.com
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