Paulo Costa has Khamzat Chimaev in his sights.
Former UFC middleweight title challenger Paulo Costa (15-4 MMA, 7-4 UFC) returned to the win column with an impressive performance against Roman Kopylov in the co-main event at UFC 318 in New Orleans last Saturday.
The victory marked just the second time the Brazilian has had his hand raised inside the Octagon since 2019. After losing to then-champion Israel Adesanya at UFC 253 in 2020, “The Eraser” went on to drop three of his next four bouts. Now back to winning form, Costa is reigniting his feud with Khamzat Chimaev (14-0 MMA, 8-0 UFC), who is set to challenge Dricus Du Plessis for the UFC middleweight title at UFC 319 in two weeks.
Costa and Chimaev were previously scheduled to face off in 2023, but the fight fell through when Costa was forced to withdraw due to an infection. Now that he’s showing flashes of his best form again, the 34-year-old has set his sights back on Chimaev — and believes he possesses the perfect skill set to become the first fighter to defeat the undefeated Chechen inside the Octagon.
"This is pretty easy, and I'm going to break down this, OK?," Costa said during an appearance on Submission Radio. "I can see this very clear in my mind right now, how it's going to happen. He'll be very stressful, anxious, and anger against me. Once the fight start, he will come, faint some punches, and then he going to shoot on my legs. So, I'm going to spend some time defending his takedown, he's going to try to push, push, push, and I think after one minute, maybe one and a half, he will be exhausted.
"His arms and shoulders will be heavy. Heavy like a heavyweight. Then he will realize he don't put my back on the mat, and he will be heavy and slow Maybe I'm not going to finish him in the very first round. I'm going to let him gas out everything that he had until he be like a dead man walking in the second round. Then I'm going to hit his belly as much as I can with front kicks, with body shots until I see he wants to give up. When I see that, I'm going to start to hit his face and make him uglier than he is.
"I'm coming for you, you know that," Costa concluded. "I will not lie to anyone. I don't need that. You know who I am, and I know who the f*ck c*nt you are. I'm coming for you."
