UFC Combat Night time 206’s Jailton Almeida ‘a great deal happier’ a heavyweight

Dana White’s Contender Sequence veteran Jailton Almeida turned a ton of heads in his UFC debut in February, and hopes to maintain the teach rolling in a unique bodyweight course this Saturday.

Coming into his second battle underneath the UFC banner, Almeida (15-2 MMA, 1- UFC) will be relocating up from mild heavyweight to fulfill heavyweight Parker Porter on the prelims at UFC Apex in Las Vegas. From a weight-chopping standpoint, Almeida is previously savoring the guide up to this combat towards Porter (13-6 MMA, 3-1 UFC).

“Just not getting to cut the body weight and not even fret about excess weight is a significant point,” Almeida explained to reporters through an interpreter at UFC Combat Night 206 media working day. “I’m a great deal happier, my self-esteem is way up there, and I’m sleeping perfectly. So, there is a bunch of aspects that are really very good with not having to slice pounds.

“I was talking to my workforce and it’s anything that we could take into account, but suitable now I consider the approach is to struggle light-weight heavyweight,” Almeida said. “But I want to hold energetic, so if there is possibilities that make perception at heavyweight we’re up for it.”

Bouncing in between two divisions would be identical to how increasing star Khamzat Chimaev began in the UFC. Almeida has explained in the previous he has been influenced by the surging welterweight and hopes to emulate his vocation. Almeida also draws inspiration from previous lightweight champion Khabib Nurmagomedov. Having said that, if he ends up staying at welterweight, he might have to glance to yet another champion to emulate.

“Everybody appreciates I’ve been incredibly open up about getting this kind of a enthusiast of Khabib and of Chimaev,” Almeida mentioned. “Maybe, you don’t know how our designs are heading to create. I may stop up becoming like Francis Ngannou, you under no circumstances know.”

Almeida’s opponent on Saturday stated he expects the matchup to be a common grappler vs. striker combat, but Almeida doesn’t imagine it is that very simple. While he won’t know what Porter will existing until the battle commences and he feels out what’s going on, Almeida thinks he can acquire care of organization on the toes much too.

“I know that my grappling is possibly way ahead of his, but I’ve been boxing due to the fact I was a kid,” Almeida mentioned. “Boxing is in which I arrived from. So I know that if I will need to strike, I can strike with him on equivalent conditions. … Never be shocked if we’re slugging it out by the stop of the night time.”

Examine out the entire pre-struggle interview with Almeida in the online video previously mentioned.