31 combined wins, 30 combined finishes: Jailton Almeida vs Jairzinho Rozenstruik set for UFC FN 224
Jailton Almeida has made some serious noise in the UFC‘s heavyweight and light-heavyweight divisions over the last year since making his debut.
The former TFL & FON light-heavyweight champion made his Contender Series debut in September of 2021, where he submitted (rear naked choke) 9-0 Russian stud Nasrudin Nasrudinov at 1:49 of round two.
Then came Almeida’s UFC debut, where he easily took Danilo Marques down and TKO’d him at 2:57 of round one.
Almeida then returned to the heavyweight division where he submitted (rear naked choke) the surging Parker Porter, who came into the bout on a three-fight win streak, at 4:35 of round one.
Then the Brazilian Phenom stopped another undefeated talent in Anton Turkalj (rear naked choke) at 4:27 of the opening round in a 220 lb catchweight bout, before TKO’ing Shamil Abdurakhimov at 2:56 of round two in his most recent outing earlier this year in January.
Jailton Almeida handily went 3-0 last year inside the octagon, quickly becoming many peoples Breakthrough Fighter of the Year in 2022, and he followed it up with another vintage performance of his to begin this year.
Almeida is 18-2 as a professional, and he’s finished all 18 of his wins with 7 knockouts and 11 submissions. Many fans and media peg him as a future UFC champion, and perhaps even a future two-division champion.
But he’s got a tough test in his next fight, where he’ll face former kickboxing champion Jairzinho Rozenstruik at UFC Fight Night 224 on May 13, 2023.
Jairzinho Rozenstruik went 76-8-1 with 64 knockouts as a professional kickboxer, and he opened up his MMA career with a record of 10-0 including a 4-0 run in the UFC, the latter two victories seeing him victorious over former world champions Andrei Arlovski (KO) and Alistair Overeem (KO).
The Suriname native would then get KO’d stiff by future, now former UFC heavyweight champion Francis Ngannou in a mere 20 seconds, before returning a few months later to stop another former UFC heavyweight champion in Junior dos Santos (TKO).
Rozenstruik would go 1-3 over his next four outings, losing to former interim heavyweight champion Ciryl Gane (UD), defeating Augusto Sakai (TKO), and dropping back-to-back defeats to Curtis Blaydes and former Bellator & M-1 Global heavyweight champion Alexander Volkov, both of which sit comfortably in the top 10 rankings today.
Rozenstruik would rebound from this pair of setbacks with a 23-second knockout victory over fellow knockout artist Chris Daukaus in December to cap off the year of 2022 with a win.
Though Rozenstruik has had his ups and downs, no one can deny, this man is capable of KO’ing anyone in the entire world on any given night, and he’s a very dangerous fight for Almeida.
That being said, if Almeida manages to get Rozenstruik down to the mat, which he will try to do, it’s a wrap.
Just as all 18 of Almeida’s wins come via finish, 12 of Rozenstruik’s 13 also come via finish. But, all 12 come via knockout with 7 KO’s and 5 TKO’s.
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