Middleweight contender Paulo Costa has one of the most eye-catching physiques in the UFC. This begs the question of what the Brazilian did before joining Dana White‘s promotion, and that is what we will take a look at today.

Paulo Costa is returning from a nasty elbow injury, which made him pull out from the UFC 294 grudge match against Khamzat Chimaev. Nevertheless, he will be coming back to action against former champion Robert Whittaker this weekend at UFC 298 at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California. But before we get to Saturday, let’s rewind a little and take a deep dive into Costa’s life before MMA.

Was Paulo Costa a bodybuilder before joining the UFC?

The nation of Brazil is known for its love for soccer, and just like any other Brazilian, Paulo Costa, his sibling, and his father all loved football. As such, ‘Borrachinha’ started playing the beautiful game when he was only 8 years old, the same time when Costa started learning martial arts as well.

At 8 years old, Paulo Costa first started training in Muay Thai. Soon after, he took up Jiu-Jitsu. But when it looked like he was going to go down the path of a combat sports athlete, ‘Borrachinha’ decided to take a different career path.

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The UFC middleweight star decided to get into bodybuilding, and that remained his sole focus for a considerable period. According to ESPN, his brother, Carlos Costa, wanted him to get back to learning martial arts again, especially Jiu-Jitsu when he was 16 years old. Paulo agreed, and he soon started participating in competitions.

However, Paulo Costa and his brother were in a difficult situation at one point. As such, he had to work at a telemarketing service. And since his work took up a lot of time, Costa was unable to take part in Jiu-Jitsu training. But his brother convinced his mother to let him continue his training because he saw a lot of potential in ‘Borrachinha’ as a fighter.

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That decision proved to be the right one since he’s now fighting at the highest level in the UFC. But MMA legend Chael Sonnen had a different take on Costa when he first saw him during ‘The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 3’. Let’s see what the veteran had to say.

Chael Sonnen reminisces about Costa’s TUF journey

‘The American Gangster’ and former Brazilian fighter Wanderlei Silva were appointed as the coaches for ‘The Ultimate Fighter: Brazil 3’. Paulo Costa represented the team of the latter. The coaches were getting ready to pick fighters for the teams and noticed that there were fighters from various local promotions. However, Chael Sonnen mentioned a few years ago that when he was checking the files containing information about the fighters, ‘Borrachinha’ had written in his file that he was a bodybuilder.

“We get to Paulo Costa, it [his file] says, ‘Bodybuilder’. That’s all it said. No other clues,” said Chael Sonnen. While he was shocked to see the middleweight star not mentioning anything about wrestling, what was more surprising was that Costa did not even mention anything about soccer. Moreover, when he fought his first fight, he lost but tried to get better by spending time with Sonnen’s team even though he was on Wandlerlei Silva’s team.

However, the contestants would hesitate to show ‘Borrachinha’ how to go about certain moves and techniques when he would ask for help. They believed that he should not have been in TUF altogether. However, with due commitment and hard work, he earned his UFC contract, and as Chael Sonnen would say, Paulo Costa turned into a diamond. “He is a lump of coal who withstood the pressures of time and he is now a diamond,” Sonnen added.

From learning to fight during TUF to becoming the 6th-ranked contender in the UFC’s middleweight division, Paulo Costa built himself with sheer dedication. Now, his next goal is to become a champion, for which he will have to go through Robert Whittaker, who lost his last fight. We will have to wait and see if he can edge past the former champion on February 17.

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