Did Costa Miss Weight To Get Cut By UFC?

Paulo Costa has officially made the 205-pound mark for his main event clash with Marvin Vettori this Saturday (Oct. 23, 2021) at UFC Vegas 41 live on ESPN+ from Las Vegas. The only issue is Costa was originally expected to compete at 185 pounds before making some last minute switches.

Having not competed since a loss to current UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya at UFC 253 back in Sept. 2020 this weekend was supposed to be a big return to action for Costa. Unfortunately, poor weight management leading up to the fight prevented the Brazilian from making the 185-pound mark. As a result, UFC officials were forced to negotiate a catchweight bout of 195 pounds and then another change to 205 pounds to accommodate Costa. Vettori ended up agreeing to both changes.

At this point, it doesn’t look like Costa is going to be part of the UFC middleweight division moving forward. Even if he happens to defeat Vettori this weekend at UFC Vegas 41 how could the promotion count on him to show up and make weight for another main event? UFC will most likely have to permanently bump Costa up to the light heavyweight division.

Vettori’s manager, Ali Abdelaziz, believes that Costa did his best job to miss weight in order to get cut from UFC entirely. That may seem a little far-fetched, but Costa already pulled out of his main event fight with Jared Cannonier back in August due to lack of pay. He was already butting heads with the promotion so maybe this was his way of getting back at them.

Check out Abdelaziz’s claim below:

“First costa asked 195 lbs @MarvinVettori said yes. After that he asked light heavyweight Marvin said yes.Marvin is the real fighter. But i was not cool that costa making a joke about weight. Sat night Marvin goes to jail hurting this man. This is not a game.”

“I wasn’t gonna say nothing but he is making fun of weight cut. He is doing everything to make ufc to cut him and cancel the fight. But this is not gonna happen.”

“I was being told he will never be allowed to fight in middleweight again. I will do my best to make his opponent last name Magomedov. This is disrespectful to the sports, the coaches, training partners, even worst his team laughing with him and think it is funny.”

What do you think, Maniacs? Is Costa trying to get cut from UFC?

Sound off!

Remember that MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC Vegas 41 fight card right here, starting with the ESPN+ “Prelims” matches, which are scheduled to begin at 1 p.m. ET, then the remaining main card balance on ESPN+ at 4 p.m. ET.