Jailton Almeida was cut from the UFC roster following his unanimous decision loss to Rizvan Kuniev as part of the UFC Vegas 113 MMA event last weekend at Meta Apex. It was kind of a dick move, considering “Malhadinho” took the fight on short notice and agreed to abandon the division once the smoke cleared in “Sin City.”
I guess there’s no room for “boring” fighters in the Paramount+ era.
Advertisement
No telling where Almeida, 34, will end up now that he’s a free agent. The number crunchers at BetOnline.ag set hypothetical odds for a couple of probable destinations, including PFL (-250), ONE Championship (+300) and BKFC (+500). PFL is home to former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou … for now.
Almeida (22-5) opened at +300 against -400 for the 39 year-old Ngannou (18-3).
That said, there’s no guarantee PFL will be in a position to acquire new talent based on some of its recent cuts, which claimed CEO Peter Murray and Chairman Donn Davis. In addition, Ngannou may be ready to set sail after just one fight, a first-round shellacking of Brazilian bruiser Renan Ferreira.
“The UFC heavyweight division is so bad,” former UFC heavyweight, Brendan Schaub, said on his YouTube channel. “It’s such a shell of what is used to be, even when I fought. It used to be so good. Go back and watch PRIDE heavyweight grand prixs. Even Bellator 10 years ago was better than this current heavyweight division in the UFC. When I fought, it was the who’s-who. It was murderer’s row. Now it’s just a shell of itself, and it doesn’t have to be.”
It probably won’t be, if this comes to pass.
