Paulo Costa lost out by unanimous decision to Robert Whittaker at UFC 298 recently, but that’s not stopped the former middleweight title contender from calling out two big-name opponents for his next fight in the shape of Khamzat Chimaev and Kamaru Usman.
Though he’s now lost three of his last four fights, Costa still believes that the undefeated Chimaev is deliberately ducking him.
“He needs to stop running,” Costa told Submission Radio. “He needs to have balls to face me. For a long time, long time, this guy just avoids these fights. He has no balls. If the guy’s not pushing him, he has no balls to fight him. He wants to fight easy fights, he doesn’t want to fight guys like me or [Robert] Whittaker or somebody else like that. He wants to fight guys with no wrestling, no jiu-jitsu game, no grappling, something like that. No balls.”
Costa wasn’t so harsh in his assessment of former welterweight champion Usman, but believes he would be a good opponent for him if he sticks around at 185lbs after his short-notice loss to Chimaev last October.
“I think he’s coming from a loss as well, I came from a loss,” Costa said. “Me and him need to put a win in the records. I think he already did everything that he showed to do at welterweight, so I think it’s time. He’s not so young as well, I think he’s 37, 36, I don’t know, somewhere around that. I think it’s time for him to move to middleweight.
“He did once against Chimaev, ‘Gourmet Chen Chen,’ but it was not the whole process, he just got short notice and came up to middleweight weighing like a welterweight. So I think this fight makes sense and he’s a powerful guy. He has different skills on the ground, wrestling skills, takedowns, and striking, I think it’s the fight to make and to put one of in the line again to the top.”
