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Fast-rising Heavyweight contender, Jailton Almeida, will throw down opposite long-established contender, Derrick Lewis, this Saturday (Nov. 4, 2023) at UFC Sao Paulo inside Ginasio do Ibirapuera in Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Almeida is rising through the ranks off a simple fact: most big men cannot grapple. The average UFC Heavyweight learns enough Brazilian jiu-jitsu to avoid the basic submissions and survive long enough to scramble back to their feet, but that’s it. “The Black Beast” is the most famous proponent of the “Just Stand Up!” philosophy, and his approach to Heavyweight ground fighting is more typical than Almeida’s.

Initially, Almeida was supposed to face off with one of the few Heavyweights who can grapple, Curtis Blaydes. Instead, he’ll face a short-notice replacement in Derrick Lewis, a foe who represents a similar stylistic challenge to prior opponents like Jairzinho Rozenstruik.

Let’s take a closer look at his skill set:

Striking

Almeida has done almost no kickboxing inside the Octagon. In almost all of his fights, he throws a kick — usually a front kick — and then dives for the takedown immediately. It’s quite literally a running joke, yet it also keeps working.

Safe to say, Almeida hasn’t shown us much on the feet just yet. His kicks are snappy and powerful, and he’s shown the left hook on a few occasions. Seeing as he’s on a 15-fight win streak dating back to January 2018 that consists mostly of submissions, his regional fights haven’t been terribly revealing either.

Eventually, someone will stop the shot, and we’ll learn something about his stand up skill.

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Wrestling

Despite his 205-pound background, Almeida is commonly able to physically overpower his foes with takedowns.

All Almeida fights begin with his double leg shot, which is an equal mix of ugly and athletic (GIF). In this regard, he’s actually very reminiscent of Ronaldo Souza. Like “Jacare,” Almeida bends over at the waist and dives at his opponents legs, which is bad form. However, he’s fast and strong enough that he can guarantee a decent grip on the legs even if met with a sprawl.

If Almeida doesn’t just run his opponent over — and he often does — he’s able to get back into good wrestling form quickly. He doesn’t stay on his knees for too long, as he’ll start getting his legs back beneath him as soon as his hands are locked. From there, his chest will come up as he drives into his opponent, allowing him to step across the body and usually finish the shot.

One point of concern regarding this style of shot is how well it holds up as Almeida fatigues, which hasn’t been an issue … yet. Historically, it tends to go badly, but maybe Almeida is the exception.

That said, Almeida has shown a nice range of wrestling technique once actually in on the body. If his opponent pulls him up into the clinch, Almeida does a really nice job of working his head towards the outside. This allows him to maintain a good angle rather than be directly in front of his opponent. From the side, he can lift and slam with the body lock, or he’ll look to cut around toward the back clinch.

“Malhadinho” is very skilled from the back clinch. His classic lift and return is powerful, but he’ll also start looked to put in hooks standing. If his opponent resists the standing back take, he’ll look to trip the far leg. Against Anton Turkalj, Almeida first attempted to trip the far leg, causing Turkalj to widen his base. In response, Almeida effortless switched to tripping the near leg while circling his body back in front of Turkalj, catching him completely off-guard.

Photo by Jeff Bottari/Zuffa LLC

Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu

Almeida is a black belt, and his grappling is easily the best aspect of his skill set.

The Brazilian is so consistently able to force finishes because his control is excellent. It’s not that his rear naked choke, arm triangle, or ground striking are unbelievably potent or advanced. The stoppages materialize because he so methodically exhausts his opponents and forces them to choose between bad positions until a checkmate occurs.

Almeida’s pressure is so heavy because he’s able to make great use of both halves of his body. From the waist up, Almeida excels at maintaining chest pressure, usually in the form of chest-to-chest or chest-to-back contact. Almeida is constantly keeping the weight of his torso on his opponent, driving into them. This pressure helps him pass the guard, and it also allows him to negate the effectiveness of stiff arms and attempts to sit up with an underhook.

Case in point: Almeida spent the better part of three minutes working to pass Jairzinho Rozenstruik’s guard. He applied heavy chest pressure, as well as switching his hips and looking to hook the inside of the top leg and free his own trapped leg. He didn’t land a ton of shots, but he was patient and heavy, and after continual work, he landed in mount.

Less than 15 seconds later, Rozenstruik was tapping to a rear naked choke. That’s a perfect position-over-submission showcase!

With his legs, Almeida is really skilled at scooping/hooking depending on the position. For example, if he takes his foe down along the fence, Almeida will immediately hook both legs and try to sit on them, Khabib-style. He’s good at sitting on a leg in half guard as well. The second his opponent starts to turn away, however, Almeida is digging a leg in as more of a jiu-jitsu hook, but he’ll switch back to triangling the legs if his opponent puts his back to the canvas.

Almeida is always looking for the wrist ride around the back. Any time his opponent bases on a hand or elbow in an attempt to gain height and scramble, Almeida is threading his arm through and grabbing at the wrist. Once the arm is secured, he’ll drive forward and break their posture further. With his free hand, Almeida can punch to create movement, or he can use the claw ride, meaning his free arm wraps his opponent’s loose arm and neck. From the claw ride and wrist ride position, Almeida can try to pressure into the arm triangle or take the back fully, depending on how his opponent moves in response.

If they don’t move, he’ll go back to punching, creating an unpleasant trio of options.

Using these tools and tenets of control, Almeida is able to flow from position to position without ever allowing his opponent to escape his realm of control, and there are some interesting tricks to his movement. For example, Almeida loves moving into mount, where that triumvirate of finishing options are available. However, he won’t always move from side control directly to mount. Instead, he’ll use his knee to enter more of a smash pass position, going underneath his opponent’s near leg and crossing it over his other hip. Usually, he does this with the wrist ride.

From this position, his opponent so screwed. Almeida can freely punch or hunt the arm triangle, and his opponent can only give up mount or back mount. Almeida ends up in the same dominant positions that he wants, but he forces his opponent to waste more energy and grow further demoralized before ending up there.

Finally, Almeida’s tactical ground striking is notable. Really, Almeida only tries to finish fights via strikes from true checkmate positions, like the flattened out back mount or high mount. Otherwise, Almeida grapples until met with a stalemate. Then, he’ll pop his opponent with a sneaky shot under the armpit or drop a huge elbow. When his foe rightfully freaks out to avoid damage, Almeida will immediately either advance position closer to one of those fight-ending spots or try to slink an arm around the throat, depending on his position.

Almeida may have great physical tools, but his strategy on that mat is one of creating brutal dilemmas for his opponent then patiently capitalizing on their choices.

Photo by Matt Davies/PxImages/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images

Conclusion

Almeida is a unique and interesting Heavyweight prospect, even if he’s shown off very little of his stand up abilities. He’ll have to stay defensively sound against Lewis, but otherwise, “The Black Beast” seems quite likely to find himself stuck beneath “Malhadinho” like all the others.

Andrew Richardson, a Brazilian jiu-jitsu brown belt, is a professional fighter who trains at Team Alpha Male in Sacramento, California. In addition to learning alongside world-class talent, Andrew has scouted opponents and developed winning strategies for several of the sport’s most elite fighters.

Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC Sao Paulo fight card right here, starting with the ESPN+ “Prelims” matches, which are scheduled to begin at 6 p.m. ET, then the remaining main card balance (also on ESPN+) at 9 p.m. ET.

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