Paulo Costa came in a ridiculous 20+ pounds overweight for his fight tonight with Marvin Vettori at UFC Vegas 41.
Originally scheduled to be at the middleweight 185 pound limit it was moved to a catch weight of 195. This was after Paulo Costa casually and somewhat dismissively – maybe proudly – told the media he couldn’t make 185. It would later become clear that he wasn’t even going to try and at one point began to sickeningly shift the focus to Vettori possibly not wanting to fight him because he was over the weight limit. Costa got raked over the coals on social media for every ignorant thing he said and deservedly so. Still, Marvin gamely and maybe stupidly accepted the fight.
Costa would share a posed photo on Instagram of himself wearing a sauna suit with not a hair out of place or bead of sweat on his skin. His manager would reportedly/allegedly say later that Costa wanted to be released and intentionally missed weight to get fired. Fire your manager, Paulo – now.
The bottom line is that if Costa defeats Marvin tonight at UFC Vegas 41 everyone loses.
Both men fought middleweight champion Israel Adesanya and both men were beaten soundly. Each of them are trying to get back to a title shot and only one of them seems committed to doing so and I will give you one guess as to which one. It’s Marvin. The fighter who was ready to make the contractual weight, agreed to fight at a catchweight before relenting and accepting the bout’s move to light heavyweight. All of this because Costa refused to keep up his side of the original agreement.
Here is what should happen in a perfect world. Paulo Costa is removed from the middleweight rankings before the fight happens and it stays that way even if he wins. Costa is forced to remain at light heavyweight at least for a year as punishment for blatantly blowing off the weight cut. A loss for Vettori shouldn’t affect his middleweight ranking but a win should count for him. Yes, Marvin accepted the weight limit shift but if I was him and I needed the money, put in all of that training, and made the trip I probably would, too. Still.
Dana White could have sacked and may still sack Costa if he loses. No one would blame him, no one. Paulo isn’t going to land somewhere else and start multiplying pay per view buys and he definitely isn’t going to be making what he is now. Letting Costa get away with this with only a small portion of his fight money taken as punishment won’t make a difference.
Marvin winning fixes everything. Costa winning makes it a mess. MMA these days, folks.