<\/p>\n
Felipe Franco makes his octagon debut Saturday in London against undefeated heavyweight Mario Pinto in the preliminary portion of UFC London, and he hopes to start his career with an impressive showing.<\/p>\n
A teammate of Jailton Almeida at Galp\u00e3o da Luta in Brazil, Franco felt that UFC\u2019s decision to release his friend after consecutive decision defeats to Rizvan Kuniev and Alexander Volkov was a bit too harsh, yet a sign of times to come with new finishing bonuses and a \u201cpressure\u201d to deliver non-stop excitement on Paramount+.<\/p>\n
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\u201cThat\u2019s what the UFC wants now, especially after this deal with Paramount,\u201d Franco told MMA Fighting. \u201cThey want entertainment. They want to see blood, they want to see people throwing down, and that\u2019s exactly what we\u2019re going to deliver.\u201d<\/p>\n
Almeida has moved on from the UFC to sign with Russian promotion ACA, and Franco still feels his departure was undeserving.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat happened to \u2018Malhadinho\u2019 was unfair, in my opinion, considering everything he did in the organization,\u201d Franco said. \u201cSince the Contender Series, he\u2019s always been very aggressive, finishing fights convincingly, and those last two performances don\u2019t define who he is. I think the UFC might be under some pressure, I don\u2019t know, but sometimes they act on impulse, and unfortunately they released him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cBut I believe he\u2019ll come back strong,\u201d he added. \u201cHe signed with ACA and is going to dominate that division there. Now it\u2019s on us to carry on in the UFC. \u2018Malhadinho\u2019 is an inspiration to me, so I\u2019m going there to represent as well. \u2026 It\u2019s always been his dream to become a UFC champion. He might have a few fights in ACA, get the UFC\u2019s attention again, and come back. Or maybe not. I believe \u2018Malhadinho\u2019 is financially comfortable right now, so he\u2019s in a good place.\u201d<\/p>\n
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\u201cNeg\u00e3o\u201d also fluctuates between two divisions like his friend Almeida, able to fight at both 205 pounds and heavyweight, and brings a 10-1 record to his UFC debut with all wins coming by way of knockout or submission. He had the chance to join the UFC through Dana White\u2019s Contender Series<\/em> this past September but saw many opponents come and go before he ultimately faced Freddy Vidal, losing by knockout late in the third round.<\/p>\n \u201cNeg\u00e3o\u201d rebounded with a pair of finishes on the Brazilian circuit to receive a call to replace Mick Parkin against Pinto in London.<\/p>\n \u201cI got the opportunity to fight on the Contender Series and it was a very good experience despite the loss,\u201d Franco said. \u201cWe stayed firm in our goal, which was to get into the UFC. Being there and experiencing everything the UFC offers an athlete just made me want it even more.\u201d<\/p>\n The 25-year-old Brazilian said he has re-watched the DWCS defeat and wasted no time fixing the mistakes in the gym to come back a better athlete, aiming to show his evolution Saturday in London.<\/p>\n Advertisement<\/p>\n \u201cHe\u2019s a good fighter. I\u2019m not going to lie to you, he\u2019s good,\u201d Franco said of Pinto. \u201cWe studied his game a lot. But he\u2019s not unbeatable. Actually, nobody is unbeatable. He has a lot of holes in his game that we\u2019ve analyzed, a lot of patterns he repeats. He\u2019s very intense on the feet and has a solid ground game, but I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll want to grapple with me. We\u2019ve studied him, and there will be surprises on Saturday. I\u2019ll be the one coming out on top.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n \u2018 The preceding article may include information circulated by third parties \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n \u2018 Some details of this article were extracted from the following source sports.yahoo.com \u2019 <\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Felipe Franco makes his octagon debut Saturday in London against undefeated heavyweight Mario Pinto in the preliminary portion of UFC London, and he hopes to start his career with an impressive showing. A teammate of Jailton Almeida at Galp\u00e3o da Luta in Brazil, Franco felt that UFC\u2019s decision to release his friend after consecutive decision […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2340028,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[25172],"tags":[453448,453447,453444,453445,25741,453446,350923],"class_list":["post-2340027","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-entertainment","tag-aca","tag-alexander-volkov","tag-felipe-franco","tag-jailton-almeida","tag-london","tag-mario-pinto","tag-ufc"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/UFC-Londons-Felipe-Franco-promises-entertainment-after-teammate-Jailton-Almeidas.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2340027"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340027\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2340029,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2340027\/revisions\/2340029"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2340028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2340027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2340027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/celebrity.land\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2340027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}