“It Was Very Weird”- Dana White Disappointed With Paulo Costa Performance

UFC chief Dana White wasn’t really impressed with Paulo Costa’s performance against Israel Adesanya at UFC 253. Touting it as the biggest fight of the year, White and all the UFC fans expected the fight to go to the full 25. If not to the distance, at least the fans expected an all-out war between the middleweight gladiators. However, it was a lopsided win for Israel Adesanya who defended his title by knocking out Paulo Costa in the second round.

That said, White believes that didn’t fight naturally and thoroughly criticized his performance thoroughly in the UFC 253 post event press conference. As per White, Adesanya tore apart Costa, to rule out the prospect of the Brazilian dominating the fight. No wonder a lot of Brazilian fans are depressed.

Dana White has some harsh criticism for Paulo Costa

Now, Costa is no longer an undefeated pro-fighter, but he could have retained his clean record tonight. All he needed to do was fight as he did against Yoel Romero. At least, that’s what the UFC President believes.

However, Costa’s recent performance against Adesanya looked absolutely different. He didn’t offer any meaningful offense from his end. Instead, ‘Borrachinha’ fell prey to Adesanya’s striking throughout the fight.

Talking about it, White said, It was weird, I mean if you look at every other fight that Costa has had, he comes out and goes after people like they owe him money and I think he just landed one jab in the fight.

White added, “He (Costa) didn’t try to clinch in the fence, didn’t try to put pressure., kept going back to the center of the octagon. Very weird”

Amid all the criticism and backlash, ‘The Eraser’ will have a chance to reclaim his dominance. It was just one fight, and Costa is still one of the top middleweights in the UFC roster. While his recent performance wasn’t alluring, the Brazilian might look even deadlier in his next fight. A couple of more wins can bring him back into the middleweight title mix. That said, we cannot rule out the possibility of a re-match between Costa and Adesanya.