Paulo Costa is calling Khamzat Chimaev a “fake gangster” after their recent altercation at the UFC Performance Institute.
Paulo Costa Calls Out Khamzat Chimaev
Recently, it was revealed that the former middleweight title challenger and rising welterweight star Chimaev were involved in an altercation that nearly got physical.
During a recent interview with Full Send MMA, Costa gave his side of the story. Costa noted that he was training grappling with Jake Shields when Chimaev began talking trash to him.
Costa got up and went over to confront Chimaev, and was fully willing to fight him then and there, but claims that Chimaev backed away as he was talking.
Because of this, Costa dubs the potential 170-pound title challenger a “fake gangster.”
“He called my name, so I went there immediately. I said, ‘What do you want?’ He said, ‘Paulo, why do you talk about me?’ I said, ‘Man, it doesn’t matter what I talk about you, I want to fight you. You want to fight me?’ He said ‘No, I just want to know what you say about me.’ – ‘No, I want to fight you mother f*cker.’ And he said, ‘Okay, let’s fight right now.’ I said, ‘Hey, okay, lets go, come in.’ He said, ‘No, you come here.’ Oh my God. Okay, I go there. And when I went there, three of his team guys came and blocked the gate and Chimaev was like ‘Hold me guys, hold me guys, I’m going to fight Paulo right now!’ Man, f*ck, he’s not a gangster.”
Jake Shields has already confirmed this side of the story, as Costa notes that Chimaev is nothing but a bully who likes to go after targets much smaller than him.
Costa claims that, if they fought, Chimaev would stand no chance against him, largely because of his own size.
“I don’t think he wants that beef, you know. He just wants to bully short guys, small guys. When he saw me I think he didn’t expect I’d act like that, ‘Okay, let’s go right now, let’s fight right now.’ So he didn’t expect that. He was a little fearsome,” Costa said. “Just talk. I’m a big guy. I’m one of the biggest guys in the middleweight division. And he can not handle me. He just wants to bully small guys. I know these kinds of bullies, I know very well, he just wants to bully short guys. He was gifted when he fought Burns. He doesn’t have any chance against me.”
Chimaev will need to focus up on his UFC 279 pay-per-view (PPV) main event this weekend. He takes on Nate Diaz in a pivotal welterweight matchup that could determine the next welterweight title challenger.
