UFC Vegas 55: Jailton Almeida In No Hurry To Fight Ranked Opponent

Las Vegas, NV – UFC light heavyweight Jailton Almeida dipped his foot into the heavyweight division with a submission victory over Parker Porter at UFC Vegas 55 on Saturday night.

Almeida (16-2) notched his second consecutive win in the UFC.

“I’m very happy to be giving this interview because it means I won. I worked on everything. The fight went around sort of the way we were expecting, but we worked on everything we did in there,” Almeida told reporters, including Cageside Press, through a translator at his post-fight scrum.

Being his first fight at heavyweight did not make much of a difference for Almeida.

“There wasn’t anything major because I train mainly with heavyweights. We have a very strong group of heavyweights. If anything it was easier than I thought because of the level of training partners that I have,” Almeida said.

In his media day interview on Wednesday, Almeida mentioned that he would be returning to light heavyweight, but

“Honestly my weight class is light heavyweight, but I train with heavyweights all the time. When my fight was about to fall through because Maxin Grishin got injured the offer came to have a heavyweight opponent,” said Almeida.

Almeida did not close the door to fighting at heavyweight.

“If it has to be heavyweight to keep active then that’s what it’ll have to be. It’s not something that was in our plans, but if it’s the right fight, why not?”

With Almeida’s skills already showing promise it begs the question if he’s ready for a push into facing ranked opponents.

“Everything in God’s time. If it’s time then I’m going to be ready. I’m still working on a lot of things. I’m developing, I’m improving, and I know that when the time comes for me to be ranked and to fight a ranked opponent I’m going to be a better level than I am right now,” Almeida said.

Watch the full UFC Vegas 55 post-fight media scrum with Jailton Almeida above. More coverage from the event can be found below.