Newark, NJ — Brazilian heavyweight Jailton Almeida came into UFC 302 this past Saturday looking to bounce back from a loss to Curtis Blaydes, and did just that.
Almeida, who has also competed at light heavyweight, came into the promotion on a full head of steam and notched wins over Jair Rozenstruik and Derrick Lewis prior to running into Blaydes at UFC 299 in March. After being stopped in the second round, Almeida faced heavy criticism for blowing his gas tank early in the fight.
“The way that I lost to Blaydes, a lot of people discredited me,” Almeida (21-3) told media outlets including Cageside Press following the fight. “And coming back here, facing a great grappler like my opponent is, getting the finish especially in the first round, it takes some of the pressure off.”
Following his win over Alexander Romanov, Almeida called out Ciryl Gane, though the match-up is less about the opponent and more about the locale.
“That’s the thing, this week I was able to see the Statue of Liberty, and it got my blood going, stated Almeida. “I want to see the Eiffel Tower now, I want to start doing a little bit more sightseeing. It just happens that Ciryl is probably going to be the main event there so I want to fight.”
“I want to fight in Paris. It doesn’t matter— if it’s Cyril great, if he doesn’t want to fight me, whatever. I’ll fight anybody there.”
Later, Almeida revealed that he had injured his knee in the fight with Romanov. “So we’ve got to have that checked out first. But nobody’s going to take the idea of fighting in Paris out if my head.”
Watch the full UFC 302 post-fight press conference with Jailton Almeida above.
