News Jailton Almeida vs. Jairzinho Rozenstruik set for May 13th

Who Wins?

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UFCIsNOTRigged said:
The only slightly unfavorable matchup imo is Marcin Tybura since we know he can defend himself on the ground, can wrestle offensively and defensively, and still fight hard after a round of being the nail. Tybura doesn't really possess traditional heavyweight knockout power so it is a less dangerous matchup in other respects. I think Gane could potentially present problems because of his movement, conditioning, size, and the fact he can wrestle a bit but it would be a tough fight to call.

Who do you see as a rough matchup for him?
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Gane would probably be his most difficult fight for the reasons you stated.
Sergei and Aspinall too.
 
Nice!

Can't see this going the distance.

Hard to even see it going a round, TBH!
 
UFCIsNOTRigged said:
The only slightly unfavorable matchup imo is Marcin Tybura since we know he can defend himself on the ground, can wrestle offensively and defensively, and still fight hard after a round of being the nail. Tybura doesn't really possess traditional heavyweight knockout power so it is a less dangerous matchup. I think Gane could potentially present problems as well because of his movement, conditioning, size, and the fact he can wrestle a bit but it would be a tough fight to call.

Who do you see as a rough matchup for him?
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-- Volkov would be a toss-up against him I think. Five-round cardio, commendable power, vastly superior striking. The reactive takedown Aspinall got him with was literally picture-perfect off a slipped punch and is not, IMO, generally indicative of his defensive grappling acumen. Prior to that fight he had 100% TDD against Tybura on 16 takedowns attempted against him and was outworking him in the clinch. Stuffed all four of Gane's takedowns. Same with Reem. Fabricio Werdum went 3 for 9 against him and even when he got him down he wasn't able to do much on top of Volkov, who got back up and TKO'd him. Hell, even against Blaydes who took him down like a dozen times he didn't actually sustain that much damage and came back late. While I could certainly see him getting taken down and submitted a la Aspinall, I could also see him making Jailton work down the stretch, surviving to punish Almeida late. Unless Romanov murks Volkov in their scheduled fight, I view this as close to 50/50, 60/40 Jailton at best.

-- Sergey Spivak. Monstrous judoka/Sambo guy who ragdolls people much bigger than Almeida on the regular these days. Has a 20-pound weight advantage and has managed to develop a decent boxing game. I have some questions about how much he's improving versus getting opponents to look good against, but either way he has looked better than when he first debuted. He willingly went to the ground with Oleinik and beat him at his own game. He only shows a 70% TDD, but minus one takedown from Oleinik in a round he otherwise pretty much swept he hasn't been taken down since the Tybura fight three years ago. Though he got outwrestled badly in that fight, I'm willing to bet he's made major strides since then. He's been finished via strikes a few times in his career, but never submitted. I'm not sure Jailton could impose his will on him and would actually favor Spivak in that fight narrowly. Bigger guy, incredibly strong, solid grappler, has momentum, young and improving, and has the more educated striking game.

-- Tom Aspinall... if he comes back looking like his old self, mind you. If Almeida tries to fight Aspinall on the feet for any length of time, especially with his suspect striking fundamentals he'd get hurt bad. Aspinall has fast, accurate, heavy hands. He's also shown himself to be a dangerous offensive grappler with 100% TDD. While only one person has tried to take him down (Spivak twice), the skills he's shown in grappling thus far plus the size disparity and his major striking advantage make me lean his way. Aspinall is a legit Black Belt who comes from a competitive grappling pedigree; I think his camp would be more than capable of preparing for someone like Jailton. I don't hold a submission loss from his fourth pro fight against him too much; his opponent in that fight was a multiple-time national champion judoka who is a veteran submission specialist of the British regional scene and the PFL.

-- Curtis Blaydes. Don't look into his "official" 33% TDD too much; it should be 50% or higher. While that's still not fantastic, it's still a damn sight better than what the statisticians have given him. If you want my breakdown on why I increased his numbers, I can provide it in another post. In any case, Blaydes -- even in the times he has gotten taken down -- has shown a tremendous ability to scramble and get back to his feet. He absolutely refuses to accept bottom position. Of the three takedowns landed against him, he has only had a grand total of 50 seconds of control time accrued against him inside the UFC. In addition, he is very positionally sound and good at defending submissions.

He took a far less shopworn Oleinik down multiple times and showed little fear of the man's vaunted submission game: shucking off attempts at a guillotine/headlock, armbar, and a triangle. After stopping the triangle he actually passed Aleksei's guard into side control to start landing GnP. He also defended a guillotine from Overeem. Mind you, Alistair won gold at the 2005 ADCC European Trials by submitting all of his opponents via guillotine and has eight pro MMA wins by guillotine. Curtis fended off a kimura and a guillotine from Volkov who's a primary striker, but has multiple career submission wins including one over Blagoy Ivanov. Finally, when preparing for Aspinall, Curtis spent a week at B Team Jiu-Jitsu rolling with the likes of Nicky Rod -- i.e. one of the greatest Super Heavyweight no-gi submission grapplers in the world right now and an athletic freak of nature with a strong wrestling base. Wouldn't surprise me if he did the same thing while prepping for someone like Almeida.

-- Sergei Pavlovich & Ciryl Gane. Grouping these guys together because I have the same things to say about both of them for the most part. Both are massive problems on the feet for Almeida. Gane for his speed, striking arsenal, and footwork; Pavlovich due primarily to his physicality & power though his technical boxing is underrated at times. Both are substantially bigger than Jailton... but both have been previously exposed in the defensive grappling department without yet having received the opportunity to meaningfully redeem themselves. Pavlovich stuffed a half-assed TD from Shamil after the guy was already hurt, but that's it. He comes from a solid Sambo & wrestling pedigree and has good training partners, so I'm sure he would do everything he could to prevent a repeat of the Reem incident. With his nightmarish power and physical attributes, I see this as a 50/50 fight at least unless Pavlovich has literally done nothing to address this hole in his game. Same thing for Bon Gamin; dude managed to stop Pessoa, Lewis, and JDS from taking him down... but those are meaningless stats compared to what Ngannou did to him. If he shows up against Jones's wrestling attack in impressive fashion, I think he would make Jailton look utterly silly on the feet before TKO'ing him late.
 
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StonedLemur said:
I like that..(car crash striking) lol.

Blaydes is one of my favorite fighters but he looks like he's going through the motions sometimes (a lot Khalil, another one of my favorite guys,).

He doesn't always move with purpose and sometimes makes things harder than they need to be.
Look what he did to Overeem, he could probably GNP everyone like that, but decides position is more important.

Jailton goes in there to end the fight, and that might give him the edge here.
I do agree that he needs to be super careful here because Rozen can turn the lights off quick like.
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Blaydes has been one of my favorite Heavyweight fighters for years. I have some really long rants dedicated to him with my thoughts on the matter. I think he has championship potential, but he's being held back by his camp and training methodology based on some stuff he's shown in the cage and what he's said in interviews. There's been a noticeable regression to his offensive grappling game since the Shamil and Reem fights that's inversely proportional to the gains in his stand-up. I'll try to find the post sometime.

Almeida's aggression is certainly an advantage, but even so Abdurakhimov was exploding up from the ground repeatedly forcing constant mat returns from Jailton which -- to be fair -- he was game to do. And his aggression got him cracked in the opening frame. If Jairzinho landed the same punch on him that Shamil did, there's a chance Almeida goes to sleep.
 
Kyd Blake said:
Good fight. Haven't seen much of Almeida. Seen most of Rozenstruik's fights, he can land and end a fight anytime, might be a decent bet if he's a big underdog.
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If you've seen Rozenstruik's fights, you saw he hasnt finished quality opposition recently. In fact aside from Daukaus and Arlovski, he usually falls into that counterstriker approach and ends up not doing shit

I wouldn't bet the house on him
 
Safton said:
Blaydes has been one of my favorite Heavyweight fighters for years. I have some really long rants dedicated to him with my thoughts on the matter. I think he has championship potential, but he's being held back by his camp and training methodology based on some stuff he's shown in the cage and what he's said in interviews. There's been a noticeable regression to his offensive grappling game since the Shamil and Reem fights that's inversely proportional to the gains in his stand-up. I'll try to find the post sometime.

Almeida's aggression is certainly an advantage, but even so Abdurakhimov was exploding up from the ground repeatedly forcing constant mat returns from Jailton which -- to be fair -- he was game to do. And his aggression got him cracked in the opening frame. If Jairzinho landed the same punch on him that Shamil did, there's a chance Almeida goes to sleep.
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Im a fan too but he needs some of that gnp back and less of the stand up.
His stand up should only set up his TDs in my opinion.

I guess we'll see how Jailton approaches this fight, hopefully he doesn't start off like he did his last one lol.
 
Post 2 Decision said:
Why do you want Lewis to die?
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Jairzinho and Lewis are 2 big overachievers with one punch KO power. Fight would be fun while it lasts.

Lewis has beaten people that Rozenstriuk lost to... in theory he is the most accomplished MMA fighter.
 
StonedLemur said:
Im a fan too but he needs some of that gnp back and less of the stand up.
His stand up should only set up his TDs in my opinion.
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I agree for the most part. The thing that got him to the dance is his mentality of "Heavyweights don't know how to grapple so I'm going to run through these guys". He started putting in good work at EFT and has made huge strides with his stand-up -- I legitimately think he's one of the most underrated strikers in the division -- but he has a really lackadaisical attitude towards his grappling by assuming it'll always be in his back pocket when he needs it. He's simultaneously a very introspective, self-reflective guy who's clearly a student of the game and is capable of understanding his own mistakes and making adjustments in some cases... while in other cases he adopts a very stubborn approach that seems to be missing the point.

It's so frustrating as a fan of the guy because I honestly feel like he's sometimes just a few micro-adjustments away from being a fantastic Heavyweight champion. I don't want him to lose the progress he's made in the stand-up (especially since there are some guys like Almeida you don't necessarily want to take down), but I do want to see him be able to get back to his old ways of being able to consistently ragdoll 265-pound men before pounding their faces into hamburger on the mat.

I guess we'll see how Jailton approaches this fight, hopefully he doesn't start off like he did his last one lol.
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Agreed. He absolutely has the tools to win this, but I'd be lying if there wasn't a little pucker factor involved for me. I really like Almeida as a prospect, I'd just rather see him at 205 is all. Every step up he takes at Heavyweight feels like one step closer he's taking to inevitably and violently getting derailed and running smack into a brick wall.
 
Let's not forget Roz got the size advantage. Striking too.

And he survived Reem for 5 rounds.

Never seen a 97kg guy go to hw. He's. Barely a lhw.
Super Impressive guy though, elite athleticism.
 
Safton said:
I agree for the most part. The thing that got him to the dance is his mentality of "Heavyweights don't know how to grapple so I'm going to run through these guys". He started putting in good work at EFT and has made huge strides with his stand-up -- I legitimately think he's one of the most underrated strikers in the division -- but he has a really lackadaisical attitude towards his grappling by assuming it'll always be in his back pocket when he needs it. He's simultaneously a very introspective, self-reflective guy who's clearly a student of the game and is capable of understanding his own mistakes and making adjustments in some cases... while in other cases he adopts a very stubborn approach that seems to be missing the point.

It's so frustrating as a fan of the guy because I honestly feel like he's sometimes just a few micro-adjustments away from being a fantastic Heavyweight champion. I don't want him to lose the progress he's made in the stand-up (especially since there are some guys like Almeida you don't necessarily want to take down), but I do want to see him be able to get back to his old ways of being able to consistently ragdoll 265-pound men before pounding their faces into hamburger on the mat.



Agreed. He absolutely has the tools to win this, but I'd be lying if there wasn't a little pucker factor involved for me. I really like Almeida as a prospect, I'd just rather see him at 205 is all. Every step up he takes at Heavyweight feels like one step closer he's taking to inevitably and violently getting derailed and running smack into a brick wall.
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I wanted Jailton to go back to LHW but I think he's enjoying the speed and athleticism advantage.



As for Blaydes, I don't want him to lose the progression he's made on his stand up, I want him to use that progression to implement what he does best sir.
 
StonedLemur said:
I wanted Jailton to go back to LHW but I think he's enjoying the speed and athleticism advantage.
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No doubt, I just don't know how long he'll be able to rely on that is all. At 205 he was still plenty fast and explosive in comparison to those guys on top of being the bigger dude inside the cage a lot of times. It was insane. There were exceedingly few tough match-ups for him there.

As for Blaydes, I don't want him to lose the progression he's made on his stand up, I want him to use that progression to implement what he does best sir.
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We're in agreement on that much. A Blaydes with his current level of striking who was also able to seamlessly mix in the takedowns, ground control, guard-passing, and GnP that he showed against the likes of Overeem, Shamil, and Justin Willis would be a championship caliber fighter and an exceedingly tough out for anyone in the division.
 
Safton said:
No doubt, I just don't know how long he'll be able to rely on that is all. At 205 he was still plenty fast and explosive in comparison to those guys on top of being the bigger dude inside the cage a lot of times. It was insane. There were exceedingly few tough match-ups for him there.



We're in agreement on that much. A Blaydes with his current level of striking who was also able to seamlessly mix in the takedowns, ground control, guard-passing, and GnP that he showed against the likes of Overeem, Shamil, and Justin Willis would be a championship caliber fighter and an exceedingly tough out for anyone in the division.
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One thing we haven't mentioned is Jailtons cardio seems levels above most guys if not all at HW.
 
StonedLemur said:
One thing we haven't mentioned is Jailtons cardio seems levels above most guys if not all at HW.
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I've noticed that too. For the pace he fights at, he seems to have excellent cardio. Much better than, say, Romanov who uses a similar gameplan and is also a bit small for the division. Hell, even Aspinall has some questions to answer in regards to cardio. It would be interesting to see if his cardio still holds up in a five-round environment or against someone who's capable of consistently defending his takedown attempts or getting back up to force extended striking exchanges, though.
 
He's gonna put Bigi Boy on his back and sub him. He thought he was gonna beat Shamil on the feet then he got insta cracked and dint want anymore. He sure as hell shouldn't want to stand with Bigi Boy if he's smart.
 
Safton said:
I've noticed that too. For the pace he fights at, he seems to have excellent cardio. Much better than, say, Romanov who uses a similar gameplan and is also a bit small for the division. Hell, even Aspinall has some questions to answer in regards to cardio. It would be interesting to see if his cardio still holds up in a five-round environment or against someone who's capable of consistently defending his takedown attempts or getting back up to force extended striking exchanges, though.
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Aspinall will know the first time he's actually in the cage whether his knee will hold up, nevermind his cardio.

He's a big dude and he had extensive knee surgery, that alone is going to fuck with his cardio.
Im sure he hasn't been running much sir.

"I have suffered a torn MCL, a torn meniscus and some ACL damage." ~Aspinall
Aug 3, 2022
 
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