‘I’m Not Pulling Out!’

Paulo Costa is doing everything he can to stay in his fight with Khamzat Chimaev on October 21st, but a recent surgery on his elbow may scrap the fight.

There’s a lot of reports flying around that Paulo Costa may be pulled from his UFC 294 fight againt Khamzat Chimaev due to recent surgery on his elbow. While the doctors involved may determine his injury isn’t healed enough to compete, “Borrachinha” wants to be clear: he still wants to fight.

Costa recently revealed that he had surgery on his elbow three weeks ago to deal with a case of bursitis. What’s worse: the elbow then got infected with staph. But Paulo has trained to the best of his ability through the whole process and shared video that seems to show him in good shape. He went on The MMA Hour to declare himself ready to fight. And now he’s on X (formerly Twitter) trying to hold onto his slot in the UFC 294 co-main event.

“Im not pulling out this fight anyway, let me fight the f— gourmet Chen Chen,” he wrote. “I AM here in ABUDHABI ALready n prepared mtfks!”

“I did surgery and still training to fight after that and everyone knows it . I really want smoke that guy,” he added in another tweet.

He also cleared up the timeline on when he informed the UFC of his injury.

“Whole UFC staff knows it since day 1 bro,” he wrote. “Once you’re admitted at hospital they need to reach Usada and everybody knows everything about you.”

During Tuesday night’s Contender Series post-fight press conference, UFC CEO Dana White confirmed it was “possible” that Costa would end up getting pulled from the card. He said he’d have an update soon — whether that was so doctors could re-evaluate Paulo’s elbow or so they could lock in a replacement was unclear.

“We’re talking to a couple of people right now,” he said regarding alternate plans for Khamzat Chimaev.