Jailton Almeida gets quick return, faces Alexander Volkov at UFC 302

UFC 302 is shaping up to be an exciting night of fights, with the matchmakers having already added six bouts to the lineup. UFC 302 is to go down on June 1, 2024, live from Prudential Center in Newark, New Jersey.

The most recent addition to the lineup comes in the heavyweight division between no. 6 ranked former Bellator and M-1 Global heavyweight champion Alexander Volkov (37-10) and no. 7 former TFL heavyweight and FON light-heavyweight champion Jailton Almeida (20-3).

Almeida is coming off the first defeat of his promotional tenure; after securing nine takedowns on no. 5 ranked Curtis Blaydes at UFC 299, all nine of which came inside the opening five minutes of the contest, he was caught with a series of elbows when he shot in on another takedown in the second, being stopped 36 seconds into the round.

Blaydes is the most prolific takedown artist in heavyweight history, and Almeida absolutely ragdolled him up until he was stopped. Prior to that Almeida had gone 6-0 inside the promotion with five finishes. In fact, he went in on a 15-fight win streak, hadn’t lost since 2018, and of his 20 career wins, 19 come via finish with seven knockouts and 12 submissions.

Volkov on the other hand, following a 4-0 run to begin his UFC career, would go 4-4 over his next eight, beginning with a knockout defeat to Derrick Lewis in the final 15 seconds of a fight he was dominating. The only other three to beat him inside the octagon are Curtis Blaydes (UD), and a pair of interim champions in Ciryl Gane (UD) and Tom Aspinall (armbar).

Since dropping a defeat to Aspinall, Volkov has gone 3-0 with wins over the likes of Jairzinho Rozenstruik (TKO), where he stopped the 76-8 professional kickboxer, Alexandr Romanov (TKO), and Tai Tuivasa (Ezekiel choke). He also boasts promotional wins over Alistair Overeem (TKO), another world champion kickboxer he stopped on the feet, and Marcin Tybura (UD), who came in on a five-fight win streak and has now gone 8-2 over his last 10.

This is going to be an interesting contrast of styles.

Does Volkov stop Almeida with his superior striking and hand the Brazilian his second-straight loss, or does Almeida get Volkov down and submit him like Tom Aspinall did?

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Brady Ordway

I became a fan of combat sports when I was 12 years old. I was scrolling through the channels and landed upon Versus, where WEC was televised. Urijah Faber fought Jens Pulver for the second time that night. That's the first fight I ever saw, and I was immediately hooked. So eventually, I began covering the sport in the fourth quarter of 2018, and have since started writing about animals as well. If you'd like to see those pieces, be sure to check out learnaboutnature.com!

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