A few days ago, Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa got into a bit of a spat during a side-by-side interview on SportsCenter. It is safe to say that the Brazilian did not like the way the middleweight champ handled that situation.
When they finally meet at UFC 253, on September 26th, the beef between Adesanya and Costa will have boiled over into a full fledged rivalry. The two have had serious disdain for each other, and that blew up in a big way after the two did an interview together recently. What started off as a civil interview dissolved into a screaming match, as the champ hurled insults at the challenger, who decided his best retort was unbuttoning his shirt to show his abs.
When @stylebender and @BorrachinhaMMA appeared together on @SportsCenter, things got predictably combative 😅 pic.twitter.com/mje30k0yhO
— ESPN MMA (@espnmma) August 21, 2020
Paulo Costa Says He Is Tougher Than Israel Adesanya
Following this verbal altercation, Paulo Costa was not amused by the antics of Israel Adesanya. Speaking with Submission Radio, Borrachinha explained that he felt like the middleweight champ was being cocky and braggadocios because he does not actually feel confident. In his opinion, a fighter who is really that good, does not need to say that he is that good.
“He showed how not confident he is,” Costa said. “He tries to say every time ‘Oh look how good I am.’ He acts like he needs to prove to people how good he is. But if you really believe you are that good, you do not need to show it.”
From there, Costa went on to explain that he feels like he is much tougher than Adesanya. He says that the the way he trains makes him unafraid to face the likes of Yoel Romero. Therefore he has nothing to worry about when facing Izzy.
“I like to think of myself like a real tough guy, maybe the toughest guy on the planet,” Paulo Costa explained. “Because I train very hard, with two, three guys at the same session, training with very hard hits, very hard punches, very hard kicks for real. 100 percent, I mean. Not just fake, just shadowboxing, no. So, this makes me very prepared to fight in real fights, with real opponents like Romero. I am not afraid to get hit, because I did this already in my fight camp for two or three months. So I’m properly prepared to make it a real fight.
“So, that’s the difference I think I have between me and Adesanya,” Costa continued. “He’s fragile, he knows that. He knows he’s fragile, he knows he cannot take two or three very hard hits on his face, on his body. He will be broken. He knows that already because he got knocked out two times, with big gloves in kickboxing, to a guy named Alex Pereira with big gloves, 14 or 16 oz gloves. Imagine what I can do with him, with his skinny, fragile body with 4oz gloves on my hands. I will erase him. Prepare to be erased Adesanya.”
Fans are excited to see Paulo Costa face off against Israel Adesanya on September 26th. It will be interesting to see how these two stack up, and if they will back up their trash talk.
