After almost a year of inactivity, Paulo Costa’s contract issue with the UFC is over. The No. 5 ranked middleweight recently revealed the names of the two opponents he hopes to fight against as part of his new four-bout deal with the UFC.
‘Borrachinha’ revealed the information to PVT while expressing gratitude to his girlfriend and agency Tamara Alves:
“We have an agreement with the UFC regarding the pay, but I haven’t yet signed the contract. It wasn’t simple; there was a lot of hard effort involved, and I must here praise Tamara for her outstanding job.
Paulo Costa said that he is in discussions to take on either Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 294 in Abu Dhabi this October or Sean Strickland in May. He stated that as part of his new contract, he wants to compete against both fighters, saying:
“I also want that. I want both of these events to take place, whereas [the UFC] is determined to make the Chimaev bout happen at all costs. We shall see.Prior to this, the promotion and the No. 5 ranked middleweight were at odds over unfair pay. In addition to declining the chance to compete against middleweight Robert Whittaker, who is ranked No. 2, at UFC 284, he revealed that he was seeking to become a mixed martial arts free agent.
Paulo Costa’s contract dispute: ‘Borrachinha’ previously accused the UFC of underpaying Brazilian fighters
Even if his new contract was the subject of considerable controversy, Paulo Costa will continue to compete for the UFC for the time being. When chatting with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour, the No. 5 rated middleweight fighter said that Brazilian fighters were being underpaid by the promotion:
“I believe that they simply provide extremely few numbers for Brazilians. I’m not sure how they calculate. They can reason, “Oh, that motherfker lives in Brazil, the jungle, they don’t need real money because the currency is like five times less than dollars so let’s pay bullst,” which would imply that they don’t need actual money. Brazilians have that “okay, I agree, let’s do” mentality, which I mentioned earlier. I did that, and I know the Brazilians frequently do that.
Costa continued by saying that Brazilian boxers are typically ready to comply with any requests made by the organization without taking the promotion’s financial interests into account. Although the details of his new contract have not been made public, it is obvious that “Borrachinha” successfully negotiated his desired terms.