{"id":493122,"date":"2026-02-20T20:21:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-20T20:21:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/493122\/"},"modified":"2026-02-20T20:21:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-20T20:21:08","slug":"jailton-almeida-posts-statement-after-ufc-release","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/493122\/","title":{"rendered":"Jailton Almeida Posts Statement After UFC Release"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Former top-10 UFC heavyweight <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmanews.com\/tag\/jailton-almeida\" class=\"tag-link\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Jailton Almeida<\/a> has broken his silence following his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmanews.com\/news\/ufc\/a-tough-watch-fighters-fans-debate-alexander-volkov-scoring-split-decision-win-over-jailton-almeida-in-disappointing-heavyweight-title-eliminator-at-ufc-321\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">surprising release from the promotion on February 12<\/a>, sharing an optimistic message on Instagram.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;It&#8217;s time to think about new challenges, to chase new dreams,&#8221; Almeida wrote. &#8220;It&#8217;s going to be that way \u2014 there&#8217;ll be news very soon. I&#8217;ll be back on the scene again.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Almeida (22-5) was ranked No. 8 at heavyweight when the UFC cut him following back-to-back decision losses to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmanews.com\/news\/ufc\/alexander-volkov-vs-jailton-almeida-ufc-321\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Alexander Volkov at UFC 321<\/a> and Rizvan Kuniev at UFC Vegas 113. He had not exhausted his contract, with the promotion electing to release him early.<\/p>\n<p>The 34-year-old Brazilian went 8-3 in the UFC with seven finishes in eight wins, including stoppages of Derrick Lewis, Jairzinho Rozenstruik, and Serghei Spivac. However, criticism of his grappling-heavy style had mounted, and UFC CEO Dana White publicly stated after the Volkov loss that he was pleased Almeida didn&#8217;t receive the decision.<\/p>\n<p>Fan speculation has already linked Almeida to PFL, where his elite BJJ credentials and 20 career submission wins could thrive. Based on his message, it appears fans won&#8217;t be waiting long for an announcement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Former top-10 UFC heavyweight Jailton Almeida has broken his silence following his surprising release from the promotion on&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":493123,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,103648,785,85],"class_list":["post-493122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-jailton-almeida","tag-mma","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=493122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/493122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/493123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=493122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=493122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=493122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}