After years of sub-par performances, Paulo Costa looked back to his old self at UFC 318 on Saturday night during a unanimous decision victory over Roman Kopylov, and post-fight he admitted that he had to make an attitude adjustment to get back to his best.
“It’s hard for me to focus and come with the work mentality. I come with party mentality,” Costa acknowledged during his backstage interview after UFC 318. “It is not good when we’re gonna fight, because it’s a big show and I love this environment.
“So I need to separate this, maybe I will talk with some psychologist. I need to focus. I was telling [myself] 100 times in the back room, ‘Paulo this is work, this is not party.’”
It’s good to see Costa finally getting to grips with his mental flaws, it’s just unfortunate that it took him five years and four defeats during the prime years of his career to finally reach this point.
Still, better late than never, and at 34-years-old perhaps there’s still time for Costa to make another rise up the rankings as he did when he first arrived in the UFC back in 2017 with five wins in a row, including four by TKO, which earned him his only title shot to date.
