Ultimate Fighting Championship heavyweight
Jailton
Almeida is prepared to deliver a feel-good moment in the sport
at the end of January.
Almeida is set to return to action on March 9 in Miami against
Curtis
Blaydes, during the main card of UFC 299. Before then,
“Malhadinho” will enter into exhibition, charity match against
Alvaro Borges, a fighter with Down syndrome, on Jan. 27. He and
Borges will compete at the Bahia Boxing and Martial Arts Training
Center—also called the Centro de Treinamento de Boxe e Artes
Marciais da Bahia—in Salvador, Brazil. This matchup, along with the
other fights on the Demo Fight
18 billing, were announced by the league on Instagram.
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“We know that sport is one of the biggest weapons of social
inclusion we have,” the promotion wrote [via Google Translate].
“Thinking about it, we decided to present an exhibition fight with
the 2023 MMA revelation athlete Jailton ‘Malhadinho’ [UFC] and
athlete Alvaro Borges with Down Syndrome. We are sure going to be a
great show!”
This will not be the first appearance in the cage for Borges, as he
debuted
at Demo Fight 17 against fellow neophyte Pablo Passos in a
lightweight exhibition contest. At the 2:11 mark, Borges hit an
armbar that forced Passos to tap, much to the jubilation of the
crowd and Borges himself. “Alvinho” will be significantly moving up
in both weight and level of competition for this exhibition
affair.
Almeida joins fellow UFC fighters Diego
Sanchez and Nate Quarry,
both of whom took charity exhibition matches against men with Down
syndrome. Sanchez took on “The
Shermanator” Isaac Marquez, while Quarry came out of
retirement to face Jake Beckmann. Both Marquez and Beckmann
submitted the top UFC talents in a pair of uplifting moments.
When he returns to professional competition, Almeida will be
putting his 15-fight, five-plus-year win streak on the line. Having
prevailed in all six appearances inside the Octagon, the
heavyweight contender is coming off a dominant decision win over
Derrick
Lewis in November, which served as the first decision victory
in his career. Interim heavyweight champ Tom
Aspinall has expressed interest in defending his strap against
the winner of the March clash between Almeida and Blaydes, with
heavyweight champion Jon Jones on
the mend after suffering a shoulder injury.