Costa Brawler Identified As Gun-Toting ‘Troublemaker’

We have more details on the shocking brawl at UFC 294 including who attacked Paulo Costa and what started the physical altercation.

Paulo Costa may have been pulled from the co-main event of UFC 294 with a bad case of staph in his elbow, but he still managed to fight on Saturday night in Abu Dhabi.

Early on in the night, a brawl erupted between the stands and the VIP fighter area involving Costa and several spectators. Video shared afterward showed one man leaping from a barrier to try and dive-bomb the Brazilian middleweight. Costa countered with a punch of his own before security swarmed in, separating the two and intercepting other would-be brawlers.

“Ya know what? Technically I fought in UFC 294,” Costa wrote on X (formerly Twitter). “I already beat 3 chenchens in a brawl. Give me my wins.”

“Don’t mess with me lil chenchen I send you back home with smack straight in ur big forehead,” he added in another post. “My right arm is working already.”

So why did these guys attack Costa? Well, it turns out they may not have been the ones who turned the confrontation physical. Explaining the situation, “Borrachinha” seems to admit he started the physical altercation over a rude hand gesture.

“Motherf— say this, show this to me,” Costa said in a YouTube video, holding up his middle finger. “So I mock his face, and next time I come in the hallway [from backstage to arena], I saw him and wave to him. And when the guy is far from you he’s very brave. But when I came, he just came to talk but he tried ‘F U’ again, so I grab him and I pull him.”

“And then some other guys pull, three other guys pull, jump the fence. So security came, and the guy that showed me his finger, he jumped me as well. I just saw his big forehead and man, I can’t miss that big head. Even with my arm, I bam in the forehead. Straight there. So that’s a good lesson for some that think just because I’m injury I can’t f— you around. I will.”

We still don’t know who the high-flying fellow who initially beefed with Costa was, but MMA freakshow expert Matysek identified one of the participants as Russian fighter Shovkhal Churchaev.

“Same guy that pulled a gun on his opponent on a podcast some time ago,” Matysek remarked in a follow-up post. “Quite a troublemaker.”

Yeah, that sucker-punching, gun wielding maniac who just tried to bum-rush a UFC fighter does seem like a bit of a troublemaker, doesn’t he?

UFC CEO Dana White addressed the situation at the UFC 294 post-fight press conference.

“Yeah with the group of people we had in the building here, it was like a powder-keg in there,” he said. “That thing was just ready to pop off. I’ve never seen something like that, someone from the crowd going after a fighter. But we handled it. We contained it.”

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For complete UFC 294 results, coverage and highlights click HERE.