Despite pressure to move up to light-heavyweight after a badly botched weight-cut for his last fight with Marvin Vettori, it’s now been confirmed that Paul Costa will in fact remain at middleweight the next time he steps into the Octagon.
Costa had appeared completely unapologetic about having left Vettori with little option other than to accept a sudden switch to fighting him at 205lbs on less than a weeks notice late last year, but nevertheless the Brazilian still suffered a unanimous decision loss.
Afterwards Dana White had suggested that Costa would be fighting at 205lbs in the future, but it seems he’s since had a change of heart.
“The UFC is not the biggest fighting company in the world by chance,” Costa’s manager Wallid Ismail told Sherdog.com. “They know that ‘Borrachinha’ was injured and that’s why he had problems with his weight. There is no doubt his next fight will take place in the middleweight division.”
As for who he fights next, it seems that Costa’s camp are leaving that in the UFC hands.
“We will fight whoever the UFC decides. I keep believing that ‘Borrachinha’ will be the champion,” Ismail said. “He just has to train right. His biggest problem is that he trains too much. If he trains correctly, I have no doubt no one in that division can beat him.”
