Paulo Costa will need to win on Saturday if they want a critical callout.
The former middleweight title challenger will face Roma’s Kopillov on Saturday in the co-main event of UFC 318 in New Orleans, and he will enter the match with a lot of motivation. Not only is he in a 1-4 slump, but Costa is already looking forward to his fight against Kamza Chimaev and then knows if he must first raise his hands.
“I want to fight very badly (Chimeh),” Costa said Wednesday at UFC 318 Media Day. “I want to hurt him. It doesn’t matter if he won that fight or not. That doesn’t matter. We need to fight. He talks very bad things about me on my girl’s Instagram DMS.
“I’m angry just to hear his name, so we need to fight. We’re young, we’re going to do our best on Saturday. …I’m going to get a victory, I’m going to call his name, it doesn’t matter if he wins or not.
Chimaev is currently set to take on middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis at the main event of UFC 319 in Chicago on August 16th. With eight UFC appearances and 14 professional matches overall, Chimaev has never lost. The run to the title mostly included a match against Costa, but the October 21st collision at UFC 294 was cancelled as Costa had an elbow infection.
Bad Blood has never settled down, and Costa feels he has more fever than ever, especially on the personal crimes that Costa alleges Chimaev committed.
“It’s dirty,” Costa said, explaining the aforementioned DM. “‘You should look for a better guy,” something like that. It’s not something that a real person or a confident person would do. Why does he send a message to her? Why didn’t he send me a message on her behalf? He is a co-sick. ”
Costa does a tall job before him in Kopirov. Despite Costa’s popularity, his results in his cage have only one win since 2019 and only one knockout since 2018, leaving something that’s what’s hoped for.
He didn’t commit to the UFC 319 main event pick, but he believes that if Chimaev doesn’t finish Duplesis early, he could struggle.
“It’s hard to predict anything, but I think Doricus is even more solid,” Costa said. “He can resist the first rush from Chimaev, “Gourmet Chen Chen.” And after the third round, how can Chimeh keep him up, he can’t maintain his energy. I think this is my question. ”