a major middleweight fight between Robert Whittaker and Paulo Costa has been booked for UFC 284 in Perth, Australia on February 12th of next year.
A former champion of the division, the 31-year-old Whittaker is currently the No.1 contender at 185lbs thanks to holding a 12-2 record there, with his only two defeats coming against current kingpin Israel Adesanya.
Whittaker’s latest fight with Adesanya took place in February and saw him lose out by unanimous decision, ending a three-fight winning streak in which he’d beaten Darren Till, Jared Cannonier and Kelvin Gastelum.
However, Whittaker has since got back to winning ways with a decision win over Marvin Vettori in Paris last month.
Now he’ll go up against the No.6 ranked Costa, who also suffered a loss against dominant champion Adesanya back in 2020, which broke his undefeated 13-0 career record.
Costa then also picked up another loss against Marvin Vettori next time out after forcing the fight to be fought at light-heavyweight due to a botched weight cut, but he steadied the ship his last Octagon outing by earning a unanimous decision victory over Luke Rockhold.
Whittaker vs. Costa is the only fight so far announced for the UFC 284 event, which will mark the promotion’s first visit to Australia since 2019.
