A middleweight fight between Paulo Costa and Jared Cannonier will top the bill at an upcoming UFC Fight Night card on August 21st.
For Costa this will be his first fight back since facing the disappointment of a one-sided TKO loss against Israel Adesanya in their 185lb title fight in September of last year.
That snapped Costa’s perfect 13-0 record, which had saw him rampage through the UFC’s middleweight ranks, including racking up TKO stoppages against the likes of Johnny Hendricks and Uriah Hall in addition to a decision victory over Yoel Romero that propelled him to title contention status.
The No.2 ranked Costa will now look to fight his way back to another title shot, starting with this fight against Cannonier, who is currently situated two spots below him at No.4 n the 185lb ranks.
Cannonier had dropped down to middleweight in 2018 and got off to a great start as he put together a three fight winning streak against David Branch, Anderson Silva and Jack Hermansson, with each victory coming by way of TKO.
However, Cannonier came unstuck against former champ Robert Whittaker in October of last year, losing out by unanimous decision.
Costa vs. Cannonier will headline an August 21st card that’s still in the early stages of development, but currently also has a few other fights like Vinc Pichel vs. Austin Hubbard and Alexandre Pantoja vs Brandon Royval attached to it.
