Jailton Almeida

slight grappling edge, short notice

His resume is littered only with losses to the division's elite, and he is portrayed as barely throwing a strike at all, overreacting visibly whenever one lands. His grappling is strong: his takedowns and top control both grade out well, and he is quite opportunistic hunting for a finishing submission, but heavily positional rather than finish-seeking overall. The analyst is explicit that his ground-striking volume has fallen off sharply from where it once was, now preferring to control rather than risk giving up position. He has a high motor and good cardio, and takes this fight on short notice.

Says plainly that it's close, guesses a second- or third-round finish, and picks Volkov on his ability to avoid being controlled or to work back to his feet.

Throws so little that his defense on the feet looks good almost by default, though the analyst flags -- and admits he could be reading too much into it -- a tendency to visibly flinch when he does absorb a shot. The real identity of his game is on the mat: a committed, high-energy approach to getting opponents down, holding them, and working from on top, with submissions taken whenever they present themselves; he is willing to repeat that process for a full three-round fight if it takes that long. As of 2025-10-20.

Struggles to picture any route to a Spivac win outside of a finish, and doesn't rate him as a real knockout threat -- so the pick goes to Almeida with essentially no qualifier attached.

Rated by the analyst as having arguably the single best takedown game at heavyweight, demonstrated by flattening a named past opponent before that fight ultimately ended badly for him on the feet. Strong top control and ground follow-up when he chooses to use it, plus a willingness to take openings for submissions. Defensively sound mainly because he avoids standup exchanges altogether, mixing in just enough token offense (a front kick, say) to set up the next takedown attempt, with an unusually high gas tank for the division.

Sides with Almeida to seize the early advantage, but explicitly rates a real chance that Romanov finishes him in the first round instead -- a stated hedge on the win itself.

Heavyweight grappler whose control game includes strong takedowns, excellent top control, excellent ground and pound and opportunistic submissions, plus a strong motor and cardio that have held up over five rounds before. The analyst speculates, without concluding, that his chin or durability could be a real question after a past fight where he fell apart under pressure.

Lays out a detailed mechanism -- if Blaydes chooses to strike instead of wrestling first, Almeida gets the takedown and control -- and states the pick plainly, noting he gave more detail than usual.

Grappling-driven heavyweight on a 5-0 UFC run, with very strong, smooth top control -- highlighted by controlling a much bigger Derrick Lewis for roughly 25 minutes -- good takedowns, good ground and pound and opportunistic submission attempts. His striking remains close to a total unknown since he avoids exchanges by grappling immediately, which the analyst reads partly as a calculated approach and the board marks with a bare, ungraded striking-defense heading. Picked to win via his wrestling/control path, most likely by submission or a long, dominant control-based decision.

he states the pick plainly, naming Almeida as his pick, but he also concedes a real, unrebutted route for Lewis -- that Lewis's power could end the fight in the opening round -- and even floats a first-round-finish bet as live, which is a conceded path to the loser rather than just a method hedge on Almeida's own win

Jailton Almeida (named only in ASR-garbled short forms in this chapter -- see name_fixes) is called a beast with a high motor: solid takedowns, excellent control on top, brutal ground-and-pound, and he attacks submissions. The analyst is explicit that almost nothing is known about his striking because he has shown very little of it at the UFC level, not because it's been tested and found wanting.

Lays out the fight as two binary, fast-ending paths and settles on Almeida as "probably the pick," but says outright he does not know which finish method to expect, and gives the other man's single-punch finishing chance real, vivid weight rather than dismissing it.

A grappler rated very highly across the board: a real submission threat on top, excellent control, efficient takedowns (a stated 75% accuracy), and heavy ground-and-pound once there. He is also credited with rarely getting hit, backed by a specific low career absorption rate, and a high gas tank. His path so far has come against competition the analyst calls well below the top of the division. Picked to get the job done by being too patient and precise to walk into the kind of single shot that could end the fight early.

The win assertion is bare and repeated: he says Almeida wins, calls it his most confident pick and his lock, and says anyone disagreeing is out of their mind. No qualifier touches the win. The betting remark (borrow and bet at roughly -1100) comes AFTER the pick is already stated and he adds that the number does not matter, so it sits alongside the pick, not inside its premise -- not a price-as-premise hedge. The injury aside (only a broken leg or something crazy beats him) is an EXCLUSION, not a route: it names a non-fight event as the sole loss scenario, which affirms he sees no fight route. Held at clear rather than emphatic on the route test: he grants the opponent boxing, counters and power and says of them 'it's still there' before judging them below what the matchup needs -- that is conceded-then-dismissed, with partial mechanism (slower than before; Almeida absorbs 0.43/min), not a route explicitly shut. The wrestling/top-pressure route is only recounted in past tense and never addressed. Reviewer may promote to emphatic if a mechanism-backed dismissal is ruled to close a route.

The analyst's highest-conviction pick on the card. A 31-year-old he regards as a prospect still short of his peak, able to compete at light heavyweight or heavyweight, built on top-level grappling, takedowns landing three times in four UFC attempts, a relentless engine, and a defensive record of barely getting touched. He sees no competitive path for the veteran across the cage and calls the fight his lock of the night.

Calls Almeida the "clear pick"; says he would be "very surprised" if he lost; the only caveat offered is about betting value (the odds are too steep), not the outcome.

Almeida's grappling is described in the strongest terms available -- a dominant, near-unstoppable force on the mat, with a UFC takedown rate the analyst calls exceptional. He is treated as a lock, a heavy betting favorite regardless of weight class, with the only hedge being that the price offers little value.