The first thing that Costa said after his loss to Adesanya was “No Excuses” but then all of a sudden, a bunch of excuses are coming in now. It does not make sense for one to drink one bottle of wine the night before his biggest fight of his career plus his body needs to recover from the massive weight cut.
Costa’s reason for drinking the night before was his trouble sleeping.
“I was kind of drunk [when] I fought, maybe, on hangover,” Costa said in Portuguese. “I couldn’t sleep because of the [leg] cramps. Keep in mind that the fight happens at 9 a.m. [local time], we have to wake up at 5 to get ready, stretch, wrap the hands. The UFC told us to wake up at 5 in the morning to go to the arena to fight. I hadn’t slept until 2:30.
He then proceeded to say that he should have not fought and postponed the fight for next week. Like the UFC will allow his reasoning, it is a PPV card and fighting next week will make them cut weight again and lots of money spent will be wasted just because his sleep problem and being drunk.
In his fight against Adesanya, he did not even land a clean punch, he was just outclassed from everywhere. He had no answer to Adesanaya’s leg kick and when he tried to initiate an attack, he was countered. His style is constant pressure but it did not work well against Adesanya as he was just picked apart.
This type of excuse is the same with Deontay Wilder’s excuse where post fight, they said “no excuses” but then a few weeks, demands a rematch because of an excuse. Although Wilder did deserve a rematch since they had a rematch clause but expired.
Paulo Costa should focus on his next fight instead which is against Robert Whittaker. Some argued that Whittaker did not need to fight Costa as he is the clear contender for the title but Whittaker wanted to stay active rather than wait for the title shot.
If we think about it, Costa has only beaten one top contender which is Yoel Romero. Meanwhile, Whittaker and Adesanya has beaten a lot of top 10 contenders that they are the clear top 2 in the division.
