Paulo Costa competed in the main event of UFC 253, suffering a second round TKO loss to UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya.
The fighter, who doesn’t want to make excuses for the loss, offers the following excuse for why he went down to Adesanya.
“Maybe I could have used more in the Adesanya fight, but many things happened before that fight,” Costa said on his Youtube channel (via Guilherme Cruz of MMA Fighting). “I don’t like to talk because it might sound as excuse, but I had no sleep, my leg was totally impaired, and I shouldn’t have fought, I should have postponed it for the next weekend or more.”
“I saw what happened with Patricky (Freire), who fights for Bellator — and has the same coach, Eric Albarracin —, and his team did the right thing. He didn’t wake up well, had labyrinthitis on the day of the fight, feeling dizzy, (so) he doesn’t have to fight. We’re in such a high level that you don’t have to fight if you don’t feel well. It was our mistake.
“He’s an agile fighter, fast, but doesn’t convince me. He didn’t convince me. It’s hard to say, I lost to him and won’t be right. I can say whatever I want and I won’t be right, it will sound salty, but, in reality, he doesn’t convince me. I can fight him 10 times and all 10 times will be different.”
Costa has already called for a rematch with Adesanya or an interim title fight with Robert Whittaker, but the UFC has yet to agree to any of those requests.
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