Khalil Rountree Jr. eyes title to honor late father’s name in UFC 307

In his early fighting days, he was “The War Horse.”

Now, when Bruce Buffer belts out his name, he keeps it straight forward: Khalil Rountree Jr.

That abbreviation at the end is an ongoing ode to the man he never got to know, a man who was taken from him when he was too young to remember.

“I only hear good things,” Rountree told The Post during a recent video call, referring to his dad who was murdered in 1992 at the Chicago hotel where he stayed as tour manager for Boyz II Men at the time. “The stories I hear, they’re always around the lines of: Oh, your dad, he was there for me.”

On Saturday, Rountree gets his chance to add another word to the end of his name — champion — when he squares off in the UFC 307 (10 p.m. ET, ESPN+ pay-per-view) main event against light heavyweight king Alex Pereira in Salt Lake City, Utah.

In the process, that’s an opportunity to bring new glory to the name he and his father share.

“It’s so cool. It’s so important,” says Rountree of that possibility. “I think for me, it’s everything that I’ve worked for, really. Not knowing my dad growing up but knowing what happened to him, I always just wanted to — or, not always, but there became a time and especially when I started fighting — that I wanted to honor him and make something of myself so that I can imagine him looking down and being proud. 

“Like: Wow, my son was this kid that had no courage and locked himself inside of his room to — wow — this guy’s fighting lions in the cage for a world championship. So it’s really big, and I’m so excited for this moment and just to be able to be in this situation to bring more honor and more light to the work that my father did and also the work that I’ve put in.”

While Rountree (13-5, nine finishes), the No. 8 contender in the UFC’s own light heavyweight rankings, is among the most unorthodox fighters to be booked for a championship fight — outside of short-notice, injury-replacement scenarios — he has never walked the easy road.

As an unbeaten pro before his 2016 selection for the cast of “The Ultimate Fighter,” Rountree considered retiring for a construction gig, his Syndicate MMA coach John Wood recently revealed. 

He lost his first two fights in the UFC, including the “TUF” finale against Andrew Sanchez, which typically signals the end of a run with the company.

Of his first 10 fights in the UFC, Rountree won just four of them — again, often ominous for one’s time in the promotion.

And then, finally, Rountree caught fire, literally kickstarting a five-fight win streak with a gnarly oblique kick TKO of Modestas Bukauskas and picking up TKOs in three of the other four victories.

“The way that I look at it now is I was still a baby, is what it seems like,” Rountree says of the peaks and valleys before catching fire. “Based off of what I’ve gone through now, the amount of work that I put in now on a daily basis versus how I used to train and work back then, they’re just worlds apart.

“And I think now, over the past, I’d say, three years after coming back from [training in] Thailand is when I really made that decision that, if I’m in this, then I’m going for the highest level, versus before, I was just happy to be a UFC fighter. And I think it made a huge difference in that shift.”

Most presumed Pereira would make his next championship defense against Magomed Ankalaev, who Pereira told The Post passed on the opportunity for unknown reasons.

Ankalaev’s loss is, as conventional wisdom goes, the fans’ gain.

Rountree is a striker through-and-through, with UFC wins over former world-level kickboxers Gokhan Saki and Dustin Jacoby.

That could come in handy against Pereira (11-2, nine finishes), famously a two-division champion for Glory kickboxing before pulling off the same feat in the UFC during his meteoric rise.

As much as this fight looks, on the surface, to be a crowd pleasing battle of heavy-hitting kickboxers, Rountree concedes it’s “just to call it even, 50-50” that the fight defies expectations and puts the lessers skill of these two elite 205 pounders — grappling — at the forefront.

“From my end, I’ve said it before, I want to go out there and give the fans what they expect to see from me. And I don’t think that fans really expect to see me wrestle. So, I want to do this in the most exciting way possible. I want to give the fans the most exciting fight.

“And who knows where it goes. But what I can say with confidence is that whatever happens and whatever fight this turns out to be, it’s going to be highly entertaining.”

A piece of the past of Rountree’s father already is thrilled with Rountree: Boyz II Men.

Rountree says that the R&B group, which dominated the charts in the early to mid ’90s both during and after his father’s tragic death, had kept in touch with his family over the years before “it slowly faded away but then it started to come back.”

“When they found out that I was fighting, they were so excited,” Rountree says of the three-man group, which included an ode to their late tour manager on their platinum-selling 1995 album “II” titled “Khalil (Interlude).” “We exchanged little words here and there. Anytime they play shows, they’ve said that I’m always welcome to come out. It’s not a very thick relationship, but the lines, the respect are still there, for sure.”

At least for this weekend in Utah, it’s Junior who’s the show to see.