Marvin Vettori details exactly what happened behind the scenes with his Paulo Costa fight going from middleweight to a catchweight to a light heavyweight bout.
The last couple of days leading up to UFC Vegas 41: Costa vs. Vettori has been quite the interesting ride with Paulo Costa showing up in Las Vegas vastly overweight, completely unapologetic, and largely unwilling to cut down to a reasonable size.
Marvin Vettori let us in on the situation Wednesday during media interviews, saying Costa was “a lot overweight” but that he’d still accept the fight no matter what. Revealing that may not have been the best strategy, because the bout then went from 185 pounds to a 195 pound catchweight to a 205 pound light heavyweight contest. But what else could you expect from Vettori, who once tried to fight Karl Roberson in the hotel lobby after Roberson’s botched weight cut resulted in their bout being cancelled?
As for how Vettori is feeling about the whole thing, he gave fans the lowdown in a video filmed, interestingly enough, from the sauna.
“I feel like it’s good for me to give an explanation to all the fans to what’s going on about the fight,” Vettori said. “So basically, I came in ready to make weight, ready to make 185 as always. I came in and a little bit after they told me ‘Costa is overweight.’ First, they wanted to do 190, and 190 wasn’t enough. So 195, then 198, and then 198 was good for a while, we signed a contract for 195 and then he says 195 he can’t make it. So we’re up to 205.”
“I’m making sure I’m gonna give a fight to all the fans Saturday night, and I won’t let this guy get away with it,” he continued. “So, I accepted the fight and we’re gonna f—king do it. We’re gonna slap this motherf—ker, you know. We’re gonna f—king beat him. It’s right for me to do it for all of us and for all the fighters who actually struggle to make weight.”
“It was very disrespectful from his side to come in 30 pounds heavier and I’m ready, man, Let’s go.”
We can’t underscore enough how wild it is for Marvin Vettori to still be fighting Paulo Costa given the circumstances. Vettori was already well on his way through his weight cut, which takes a certain amount of strength and cardio out of you if not durability as well. Paulo Costa got to walk in without cutting anything but water weight, and as far we know the only financial compensation going Vettori’s way is 20% of Costa’s show purse, which is what a fighter gets if their opponent misses weight by half a pound.
Once again, it seems like Paulo Costa came in relying on Marvin Vettori being willing to put up with any amount of tomfoolery, so long as he gets to step into the cage and fight someone. And he was right. We’ll see how it plays out for both men on Saturday night.