Heavyweight star Jailton Almeida will now be fighting Alexander Romanov at UFC 302 in Newark, New Jersey on June 1st.
Almeida had originally been scheduled to fight Alexander Volkov at the event, but just days after it was announced Volkov was suddenly pushed back to fight Sergei Pavlovich at UFC On ABC 6 on June 22nd instead.
The 32-year-old Almeida had appeared to be on trajectory towards title contention after quickly compiling six fights in a row since joining the UFC from the Contender Series in 2022.
Almeida made short work of his early opponents in the Octagon and proved that was no fluke when he then went on to TKO Shamil Abdurakhimov, submit Jairzinho Rozenstruik and beat Derrick Lewis on the scorecards during his 2023 campaign.
However, Almeida started off 2024 with his first loss in the UFC after being KO’d by Curtis Blaydes in March, which has seen him slip back down to No.7 on the heavyweight rankings.
Now he’ll be going up against the 33-year-old Romanov, who is coming in off a unanimous decision win against Blagoy Ivanov in July of last year.
However, before that Romanov had suffered back-to-back losses against Marcin Tybura and Alexander Volkov, which leaves him ranked No.13 in the division.
As things stand UFC 302 still doesn’t have a main event confirmed, with Almeida vs. Romanov being the most notable fight on a line-up that so far also includes the likes of Roman Dolidze vs. Anthony Hernandez, Niko Price vs. Jeremiah Wells and Grant Dawson vs. Joe Selecki.
