Paulo Costa received his wish. But it came at a price.
Costa made headlines Wednesday during media day when he revealed he weighed 211 pounds and wouldn’t be able to make weight for his middleweight headliner against Marvin Vettori at UFC Vegas 41 this weekend.
“I think this fight will happen – it just will not happen if he does not want to fight me,” Costa said. “Maybe we can do a catchweight. Ninety kilos (approximately 198 pounds), maybe. I think making this fight (at a catchweight) could be more exciting to the fans – more explosive fight because I want to go bring the fight for him. Maybe he wants to bring the fight to me. So, I think with both guys heavy, this knockout can happen easily.
“… It’s not on the schedule to make 185 anymore. It’s another weight above that, but I’m not exactly sure which weight yet.”
To Vettori’s credit, he took it professionally and was willing to fight Costa at any weight the latter desired.
In a joint interview later in the day, the pair agreed to fight at 195 pounds with reports later stating that the UFC was working on making it happen.
Vettori Gets 20% Of Costa’s Purse
As per reports on Thursday, it is now official as new terms of the contract were finalized with Costa having to forfeit 20 percent of his purse to Vettori.
Of course, that doesn’t come as a surprise as Costa didn’t look like he planned on making 186 pounds at all going by his tweets and interactions at media day.
However, we are still getting a fight nonetheless, and although it’s not officially at middleweight, a win for either fighter will do greatly for them in bouncing back from their respective title fight defeats to Israel Adesanya.
Costa hasn’t competed since a second-round TKO defeat to Adesanya in their middleweight title fight at UFC 253 in September last year. Vettori, meanwhile, was outpointed again by Adesanya in their rematch at UFC 263 in June.
