Paulo Costa Claims He Can’t Make Middleweight for UFC Fight Night 196 Main Event

It sounds like Paulo Costa won’t even attempt to make the contracted middleweight limit for his UFC Fight Night 196 headlining bout against Marvin Vettori on Saturday.

During a media day for the event on Wednesday, the Brazilian revealed that he currently weighs 211 pounds. He also indicated that there is already some type of agreement in place to go forward with the bout.

“My weight right now is 96 kilos (211 pounds),” Costa said. “What happened yesterday, [my manager] Wallid [Ismail] talked with some people with him, Ali [Abdelaziz], his manager I think, and it’s not on the schedule to make 185 [pounds] anymore. It’s another weight. I’m not exactly [sure] which weight yet.”

While nothing has currently been announced regarding an agreement for a catchweight bout against Vettori, “Borrachina” hopes that his opponent will be open to fighting at a weight above 185 pounds.

“I think this fight will happen,” Costa said. “It just will not happen if he don’t want to fight me. Maybe we can do a catchweight 195 [pounds] maybe but I think make this fight [205 pounds] could be more exciting to the fans.

“[It’s a] more explosive fight cause I want to go bring the fight for him. Maybe he wants to bring the fight to me. I think with both guys heavy, this knockout can happen easily.”

Costa said he will reveal “after the fight” what difficulties led to him being unable to make the middleweight limit. The 30-year-old Brazilian has not competed since a second-round technical knockout loss to Israel Adesanya in a middleweight title bout at UFC 253.