The Brazilian fighter revealed this in an interview with MMA Junkie.
“It would be ideal to face Cyril Gawn, but Tom Aspinall has already talked about a fight with me, so I will probably face him first,” Almeida stated. “It will be a very good fight because Aspinall is a versatile fighter. He moves great and I feel I can compete with him. It’s going to be a good and fair fight for the future of the division and the right to fight the current champion.”
The Brazilian fighter is confident that the UFC is doing the right thing by not stripping the injured Jon Jones of his current title.
“Jon Jones is still the best in the division. Maybe Aspinall will be declared the reigning champion, but for me there’s no doubt that Jon Jones is still number one”
On November 11 at UFC 295 in New York City, Tom Aspinall won the interim UFC heavyweight championship belt by knocking out Sergey Pavlovic in 69 seconds, and the week before that, Jailton Almeida earned his sixth straight UFC victory by winning a five-round unanimous decision over Derrick Lewis.