Jailton Almeida previews potential Tom Aspinall clash while making bold fight prediction: "There’s levels to being a black belt"

Jailton Almeida recently shared his thoughts on a potential Tom Aspinall fight and made some significant claims about how his skills could match up to the Englishman's in the cage.

After being promoted to undisputed UFC heavyweight champion following Jon Jones' retirement last month, Aspinall is set to face Ciryl Gane in his first title defense at UFC 321 in October. The Englishman has a professional record of 15-3, with 12 of those wins coming via knockout and the other three via submission.

Given his impressive resume and skillset, Aspinall is highly touted to become a future heavyweight icon in the promotion. However, Almeida has his doubts. In an interview with Ariel Helwani, he explained why he believes Aspinall would struggle against him and said:

"I’m more explosive than anybody [Aspinall] has faced, especially on the grappling side of things — I think it would probably develop as a grappling fight. He is a [BJJ] black belt, but there are levels to being a black belt. I think that I’ll be able to take him into deep waters once we get to the grappling side of things." [via Translator]

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Jailton Almeida predicts Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane title fight at UFC 321

In the same interview, Jailton Almeida shared his prediction for the upcoming Tom Aspinall vs. Ciryl Gane heavyweight title fight. Almeida sees Aspinall make easy work of Gane and claimed the Frenchman wasn't focused on the right things at the moment.

Speaking to Ariel Helwani, Almeida called the Aspinall-Gane fight in favor of the Englishman and said:

“I’m pretty sure that Aspinall beats Gane. It seems like Gane has other priorities in his life right now. Once you’re fighting at this level there can’t be no other priority. If you’re fighting at this level, if you’re fighting for the heavyweight crown of the UFC, you have to be all in, and it doesn’t seem like that’s the case for Gane right now. I get it that he’s taking it because who’s not going to take another title fight for the heavyweight belt? But I think his priorities are in a different place now.” [via Translator]

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Edited by Nishant Zende.