Paulo Costa suffered the first setback of his professional career on Saturday when he lost to Israel Adesanya at UFC 253.
After promising to end Adesanya’s (20-0 MMA, 9-0 UFC) middleweight title reign in the headlining bout at Flash Forum at Yas Island in Abu Dhabi, Costa (13-1 MMA, 5-1 UFC) ended up suffering a lopsided second-round TKO defeat that spelled the end of his perfect record.
Although it was a disappointment effort in the biggest moment of his career, Costa took the result against his heated rival with humility, at least according to his first post-fight comment.
The Brazilian took to social media on Sunday and simply promised to be better next time (via Twitter):
I will back stronger , very soon ! Thank you all pic.twitter.com/nzYwpf7NEg
— Paulo Costa ( Borrachinha ) (@BorrachinhaMMA) September 27, 2020
Many, including UFC president Dana White, were puzzled by Costa’s game plan for the fight. Coming in, “Borrachinha” had the highest striking output in UFC history. He landed just 12 significant strikes in nine minutes of fighting against Adesanya, though, and it was a key contributor in his demise.
“I think he landed one jab in this fight,” White said at the UFC 253 post-fight news conference. “He didn’t try to clinch on the fence, didn’t try to put pressure, kept going back to the center of the octagon. It was very weird.”
