Jesus Cristo. Paulo Costa is lacking in self awareness.
There are times when I question whether or not Paulo Costa is legally sane. I won’t share the comments because I don’t believe in sharing ignorant misinformation but the former UFC middleweight title contender has posted some insane things on social media. For a while it was conspiracy theories, flat earth, and making excuses for his loss to current middleweight champion Israel Adesanya. Nothing should surprise me anymore when it comes to him but today it did.
Costa isn’t even trying to hide the fact that he isn’t going to make the middleweight, 185 pound limit and he doesn’t appear to care at all. You could even say that he was flippant and dismissive when asked about it. ‘Infuriating’ would be another word for his comments especially when it came down to his opponent on Saturday, Marvin Vettori’s decision to take the fight.
Paulo can’t/won’t make the weight and instead of taking responsibility – he deflected. He came across as if he was saying Marvin had an obligation to the fans despite his not being able/willing to make the agreed-upon contractual weight limit.
WTF.
Here’s some of what Costa said at the UFC Vegas 41 media day (via BJPenn.com)…
My weight right now is 211 pounds. What happened yesterday, Wallid (Wallid Ismail his manager) talked with some people with him, Ali (Ali Abdelaziz), his (Marvin’s) manager I think, and it’s not on the schedule to make 185 anymore. It’s another weight. I’m not exactly …which weight yet.
I wonder if Dana White is OK with how flippant he is being about not being able to make weight. Costa continued…
I think this fight will happen. It just will not happen if he don’t want to fight me. Maybe we can do a catchweight 195 … maybe but I think make this fight [205 pounds] could be more exciting to the fans. More explosive fight cause I want to go bring the fight for him. Maybe he wants to bring the fight to me. I think with both guys heavy, this knockout can happen easily.
So he’s trying to sell the fact that he couldn’t make weight as being a good thing because both of them will be heavier and the fans will likely see a knock out because of it. Then, and this is ridiculous, he starts to talk about whether or not Marvin can make certain weights.
Make a little difference for me now, four or five pounds, six pounds. I just don’t care. I’m more concentrated on my weight than on his weight. I don’t care if he makes 225 pounds or more. We need to find a catchweight to make. I don’t know exactly yet.
What do you think of the way that Costa is downplaying all of this and deflecting? I think a fighter has an obligation to make the agreed-upon weight limit. I don’t think that Paulo Costa sees his lack of effort even as an inconvenience to Vettori. The whole situation comes across like costa believes his failure is Marvin‘s responsibility. Marvin is likely taking the fight for financial reasons and so he doesn’t have to wait again for a chance to work his way back to another title shot.
This whole thing is nuts.