Tyler Durden 
A professional fighter for only three years and already competing under the bright lights of the UFC, Eduarda Moura is in no rush to hunt for a belt now that she’s competing as a flyweight. And she feels it’s also inevitable for teammate Jailton Almeida, a top-ranked heavyweight who campaigns to face Tom Aspinall for UFC glory — or earn it once for all by beating Alexander Volkov.
“There’s nothing else to be done,” Moura told MMA Fighting. “He will fight someone now, maybe Volkov, whoever shows up, but the next one you can’t deny him a shot at the belt. There’s nowhere to go. Where else should ‘Malhadinho’ go? He belongs at the top and I truly believe he will get there. We’re cool, he’s also cool. We know he will get there so he’s in no hurry, you know? There’s nowhere to go now, just wait.”
Almeida won eight of nine since joining the UFC in 2022, finishing all but one of the men he beat, and was hoping to get the first crack at Aspinall following Jon Jones’ retirement. The UFC has yet to reveal who’s next for the Englishman, and Moura feels it’s a waste of time to give Ciryl Gane the chance given his past setbacks in title bouts versus Jones and Francis N’Gannou.
“I believe ‘Malhadinho’ will be much better prepared for Aspinall because Aspinall will be the toughest fight of ‘Malhadilho’s’ career, of his entire life,” Moura said. “I believe it’s good that he has this time to work and evolve and get to his 100 percent when he fights Aspinall, and God willing bring us the belt.”
And if they do meet inside the eight-sided cage one day, Moura believes her friend will once again display his wrestling and jiu-jitsu skills to become the first to submit Aspinall in 10 years.
“I think ‘Malhadinho’ takes him down and catches him, for sure,” Moura said. “Aspinall is dangerous, everybody knows that. He’s fast and has heavy hands, so I believe ‘Malhadinho’ will go for the takedown early — as he always does, as he loves doing. I hope he takes him down and catches him quickly so our hearts don’t suffer too much [laughs].”
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Photo by Chris Unger/Zuffa LLC
As Almeida awaits his next assignment, Moura lands in Tennessee to take on one-time UFC title contender Lauren Murphy in the preliminary portion of UFC Nashville. “Ronda” was victorious in her flyweight debut in the octagon with a decision over Veronica Hardy and feels delighted to not have to worry about stricter diets no more.
“The only — and I hope only — loss of my career happened, and [the weight cut] affected me a lot,” said Moura, referring to a split decision defeat to Denise Gomes in June 2024, when she missed weight by half a pound. “I couldn’t sleep for three nights, I fell ill before the face off. That weight cut was brutal. It was a learning experience for me to rethink that matter. There’s no need. I’m strong at flyweight. I could even fight at 135, but my flyweight is my true division.”
Moura expects the ‘experienced’ Murphy to be calm and collected when they trade punches for the first time, but to eventually crumble against her grappling. “Ronda” will be 2-0 as a flyweight if victorious in Nashville, and explains why winning a UFC belt in this division doesn’t seems so scary when compared to strawweight.
“I’m a big fan of Weili Zhang,” Moura said. “She’s someone that I’ve alway thought would be the toughest fight in the world, so since I left that division… [Valentina] Shevchenko is also tough, but I trust Weili Zhang’s potential more. That Chinese is a badass. I would be more apprehensive of fighting her in a title fight than Shevchenko. That’s why I think strawweight would be tougher, because of that Chinese.”
There’s a chance Weili moves up to flyweight for a superfight with Shevchenko, though.
“She won’t come up. She will stay quiet down there,” Moura laughed. “But if she comes, there’s nothing we can do. We’ll have to do what we do. I hope to be ready when I get there [laughs].”
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