UFC heavyweight division number nine Jailton Almeida, who is set to share the octagon with Derrick Lewis this weekend, shared his opinion on the upcoming fight for the interim championship belt between Sergey Pavlovic and Tom Aspinall.
“Jon Jones’ injury opens up opportunities and now we have a Pavlovic and Aspinall fight,” the Brazilian said while speaking to reporters ahead of UFC Fight Night 231. “As for the favorite, I think Tom Aspinall didn’t have the mindset to fight for the title. After his last fight, he said he wanted to fight Cyril Gawn.”
“Meanwhile, Pavlovic was focused on fighting for the belt – he was a backup in the title fight and had a full training camp. For that reason, I favor Pavlovic. He’s had a full training camp, while Aspinall has just been training in a standard mode and is not psychologically ready to fight for a title. He wasn’t thinking about fighting for the championship belt.”
According to Almeida, he doesn’t rule out that a win over “The Black Beast” would put him in a fight with the winner of this confrontation.
“I’m a little concerned that maybe I’ll never realize my dream and fight Jon Jones. But if I get past Derrick Lewis, maybe I can face the winner of the Pavlovic-Aspinall fight, or they’ll give me another fight. Either way, there’s a lot going on in the division and it opens up new opportunities”
Recall that the title fight between the Russian and the Brit will be the second major event of the UFC 295 tournament, which will take place on November 11 in New York.
Source: https://fighttime.ru/news/item/33041-almejda-dal-prognoz-na-boj-pavlovicha-i-aspinalla.html?rand=19907
