Paulo Costa is the newest member of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) roster to express his desire to box. Like most of his peers, Costa’s potential combat crossover is fueled by money.
Costa, who began his professional MMA career with a 13-0 record, is widely regarded as one of the best power punchers in the sport today. However, Costa’s ability to knock people dead hasn’t helped him over his last two fights, which resulted in losses to current UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and perennial contender Marvin Vettori. A badly botched weight cut before his last trip to the Octagon certainly didn’t help his UFC stock either.
With so many fighters expressing their interest to move over to boxing it isn’t surprising to see Costa’s name pop up. The Brazilian fighter already had issues with UFC over pay back in 2021. He even refused to fight in a main event because he wasn’t being paid enough money. Add in the recent weight issues and Costa is a prime candidate to jump ship when his UFC contract is up.
“Boxing is in now. It’s a new opportunity. It’s just something to consider for now. I’m still under contract with the UFC, so I can’t really do anything. First, I have to finish the contract,” said Costa during a recent interview with Ag Fight.
That said, Costa understands the risk of leaving a massive promoter like UFC in favor of the unknown boxing landscape. UFC may not pay its fighters enough, but a knockout specialist like Costa will be promoted beyond belief as a member of the massive MMA promotion. It’s not necessarily something “Borrachinha” would get fighting somewhere else even though the money may be better.
“This is a tough question to answer.” Paulo continued. “Boxing pays more, much more, in a shorter period of time. However, it doesn’t have the promoting power that the UFC has. The UFC pay is low, but they have a high promoting power. It’s ideal to have both. Take the best of both worlds. That’s what Ngannou did. He became an UFC champion with a really bad purse. Now he’s doing the right thing. He’s taking advantage of the fact that he’s at the top to get in a better financial situation, outside of the UFC.”
What do you think, fight fans? Do you want to see Costa compete inside of the boxing ring? How would he do?
Let’s hear it!