It seems a fight between Yoel Romero and Paulo Costa simply isn’t meant to be.
After Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) initially eyed a showdown between the two hard-hitting Middleweights to headline the upcoming UFC on ESPN 3 event on April 27, 2019 in Sunrise, Florida, the promotion has opted to go another route.
According to ESPN, Romero will instead rematch Ronaldo Souza in a do-over three years in the making, which is set to go down inside BB&T Center and will air exclusively on ESPN. “Soldier of God” initially defeated Souza at UFC 194 back in 2015 via split decision to score his seventh straight win inside the Octagon.
Romero looks to get back in the winner’s circle after coming up short in his bid to dethrone current middleweight champion Robert Whittaker at UFC 225 last June. Yoel has gone 1-2 in his last three fights and looks to get back into the championship hunt with a second win over Jacare.
As for Souza, he was last seen knocking out Chris Weidman at UFC 230 last November (see it). Ronaldo is 2-1 in his last three outings and is in search of his first-ever shot at UFC gold after five years of action.
This is now the third time a fight between Romero and Costa has failed to see the light of day. That said, who does Paulo fight now?