However, the heavyweight who did the most for himself in 2025 (literally and figuratively) was Waldo Cortes Acosta. Appearing five times, Cortes Acosta sandwiched a loss to Sergei Pavlovich between pair of wins over Ryan Spann and Serghei Spivac to start the year and two first-round knockouts in November over Ante Delija and Shamil Gaziev. His win over Gaziev was particularly impressive as it came 21 days after his previous fight with Cortes Acosta arriving in Doha for the bout on Friday morning for weigh-ins. The Dominican Republic representative continues his high activity rate in 2026 when he faces UFC’s knockout king Derrick Lewis at UFC 324.
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Outside of those two, Pavlovich and Almeida are the other two heavyweights hoping to make their cases for title contention albeit with more work to do. Pavlovich got out his funk in 2025 and scored decision wins over Jairzinho Rozenstruik and Cortes Acosta, and he goes into 2026 hoping to extend that streak and tally his first knockout since April 2023. Almeida sort of ran into a wall against Volkov, his lack of activity when gaining top control a major point of frustration for the talented Brazilian. However, he is still a beast of a fighter, and at 34 years old, there are plenty of examples of athletes who put it together and take the next step, particularly in the heavyweight division.
Other Names to Track: Derrick Lewis, Valter Walker
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