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Paulo Costa is ready to put on a show against UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
UFC middleweight contender Paulo Costa is eager to put on a legendary performance when he meets the division’s champion, Israel Adesanya.
According to ‘Borrachinha,’ his rivalry against the ‘Last Stylebender’ has the potential to be the biggest one in the weight class’s history.
In an interview with Ag Fight, Costa said that his bad blood with Adesanya will raise the bar even above the one Anderson Silva had with former title challenger Chael Sonnen. That is because Paulo believes both himself and Israel are willing to go above and beyond in their trash talk, unlike Silva, who never really fired back to Chael’s taunts.
“My fight with Adesanya will be one of the biggest ones in the past few years,” Costa said. “I can only speak for myself, but I’ll make this pay-per-view be worth every cent. We really don’t like each other. This is, for sure, the biggest rivalry in middleweight history. Much bigger than Anderson vs. Sonnen, because Sonnen talked trash, but Anderson didn’t. Anderson just let Sonnen talk. I can’t not fire back and that generates more animosity.”
Although Costa does believe his fight with Adesanya has the potential to be a historic one, the Brazilian also thinks Israel needs to put on a better show for his fans after his uneventful title defense against Yoel Romero. In Paulo’s opinion, the champion lost credibility after the victory and needs to regain the fans’ trust.
“He is trying to promote the fight somehow,” Costa said. “He knows pay-per-view sales will be horrible because of his last fight. The only way to sell this fight is believing I’ll go after him and not do what he did. I want to tell my fans I will make this fight be worth watching.”
“Adesanya lost credibility after his fight with Romero,” Costa continued. “He said he was going to do all those things to him and then he froze when it was go time, which resulted in that ridiculous, scare fight. I was there and the crowd booed a lot. Even some journalists and Dana White. I don’t care what he says, it doesn’t matter. What matters is what we do, not what we say.”
With an unbeaten record of 13-0, Costa has had five of those wins in the UFC, with victories over Garreth McLellan, Oluwale Bamgbose, Johny Hendricks, Uriah Hall and most recently, Yoel Romero. The 29-year-old has 11 knockout wins in his career and has only gone the distance one time, against the ‘Soldier of God’ at UFC 241.