Paulo Costa Eyes Kamaru Usman Next, Accuses Khamzat Chimaev of Ducking Him

Paulo Costa isn’t wasting any time in plotting his next matchup after coming up short against Robert Whittaker earlier this month.

While he dropped a unanimous decision, Costa had an impressive showing after a year and a half of inactivity against the former middleweight champ at UFC 298 on Feb. 17. Rather than dwell on his loss, “Borrachinha” has already issued a callout to former welterweight champ Kamaru Usman in a recent interview.

Usman moved up to middleweight for his last outing at UFC 294 in October 2023 for a short-notice clash against Khamzat Chimaev. He was a replacement for Costa, who was unable to recover from an elbow surgery in time to fight. “The Nigerian Nightmare” dropped a tightly-contested majority decision which, according to Costa, doesn’t count for anything.

“He comes from loss, I come from loss,” Cosat told Submission Radio. “So, yes, me and him need to put a win in the records. I think he did already everything that he showed to do in welterweight. So, I think it’s time.

“He’s not so young as well. He’s like 37, 36. I don’t know, something around that. So, I think it’s time for him to move to middleweight. He did once against Chimaev, you know, Gourmet Chechen. But, was nothing there in the whole process. Like, he get just got a short notice and came up to middleweight weighing welterweight.

“So, I think this fight makes sense, and he’s kind of a powerful guy. Yeah, he has different skills on the ground, wrestling skills, takedowns and striking. I think it’s a fight to make, you know, and to put one of us in the line again at the top.”

Costa has a longstanding feud with Chimaev, which was supposed to be settled at UFC 294 last year before “Borrachinha” pulled out. Nevertheless, Costa went on to accuse “Borz” of ducking him multiple times.

“He needs to stop running,” Costa said. “He needs to have balls to face me. Yes, for a long time, long time, this guy just avoided this fight. He has no balls. If the guys don’t push him, he has no balls to fight me.

“He wants to fight easy fights. He wants to fight guys, you know, he don’t want to fight guys like me, Whittaker, or somebody else like that. He wants to fight guys with no wrestling, no jiu-jitsu game, no grappling. You know, something like that.”

While Usman is currently on a three-fight skid, Costa has dropped three of his last four with his lone win coming against Luke Rockhold in August 2022.