Paulo Costa wasn’t lying when he claimed he drank wine before his fight with Israel Adesanya.
Costa received plenty of ridicule for stating that he had been drinking wine the night before UFC 257 which led to him losing to Adesanya via second-round TKO in their middleweight title fight at UFC 253 in September last year.
The Brazilian went a step further by claiming the result didn’t count while joking that “Sober Costa” was undefeated.
But despite all the jokes, Costa did drink wine, but not for any purpose other than to sleep after he started experiencing problems in his body.
“My weight cut was very hard, but it’s always hard,” Costa told ESPN. “The problem is that in Abu Dhabi, the fight happens in the morning, not at night. So, you get one night more [of recovery]. And what happened is, after my weight cut, I had recovered very well my weight.
“But then I trained so hard. I was so confident that I trained hard. I trained more than is recommended after a weight cut. And I think this made a lot of problems in my body. I had a lot of cramps, I had a lot of problems trying to sleep.”
Costa Was Desperate To Fall Asleep
Costa believes the extra training — something he usually doesn’t do after a weight cut — was the main cause of his cramps, and requiring at least four to five hours of sleep, he tried many things before opting for wine
“I could not walk the night before the fight,” Costa said. ” … I had decided to fight. I would not let this fight fall out. After the physical therapist stepped out of my room, I went to my bed but couldn’t fall asleep. So I tried melatonin before, but it didn’t work. I tried ZzzQuil but did not work.
“And I had wine so I think I will try wine because I need to sleep a little bit. Sometimes I will use one cup of wine when I feel a lot of stress, it’s helped me a little bit, but just one cup, when I have time to put it out of my body. But it was too late. I was desperate to fall asleep.”
That said, Costa has no regrets about revealing the wine revelation in the first place.
You can watch the full interview below:
