“Listen, if you continuously can’t make weight. You know, we’re beefing with [Paulo] Costa right now over this.” Dana White was truly upset with Paulo Costa because of his repeated withdrawals from fights in 2021. ‘The Eraser’ has been with the UFC since 2017; fought only 10 times and pulled out of eight fights. But for Costa, the beef seemingly stemmed from something else. 

During a recent conversation with Ariel Helwani on his YouTube talk show, Costa expressed his support for everyone including Dana White, stating that he didn’t care about the consequences of his stance. The Brazilian claimed, “I support everybody that the people used to hate. I don’t care for consideration or for patrols, you know. F— them! F— them! I support you, my friend, Ariel Helwani, I support bryce Mitchell, I support Dana White right now.” 

Helwani then pushed Costa, asking him the reason why he didn’t support White previously. The middleweight former title contender replied, “Back in the day, we had some beef, you know. Not that he did bad things to me, but I was a little bit sad, mad.” 

The MMA reporter continued to pry in and asked if the timeline of the beef was somewhere around UFC 253, when he fought Israel Adesanya for the belt. But that wasn’t it. ‘The Eraser’ answered, “No, because my first six fights in the contract was unfair getting paid, you know. I talk very honest, I say, ‘Guys, come on. This is unfair, you know. I’ll be close engage in this company for a long fight period. This is not fair just because of bad decision in the past.’ But now it’s okay. He’s the best.” 

Right now, the 34-year-old Brazilian middleweight contender has an estimated total net worth of $2-3M. Like many others, Costa began his UFC journey with a base salary of only $10K. But in his last fight against Sean Strickland at UFC 302, Costa received a base salary of half a million dollars. Despite the rising curve of his salary, he has often troubled the UFC with repeated pullouts from his fights and failed weight cuts. 

MMA analysts fire shots at Paulo Costa for multiple withdrawals

Paulo Costa is currently scheduled to fight Roman Kopylov at UFC 318. But his commitment to his fighting career has come under scrutiny by Adam Catterall, Michael Bisping, and Nick Peet, as they lashed out at the Brazilian on TNT Sports. Catterall said, “He’s becoming a bit of a comic book character. Is he that, or is he a serious contender? Because we’re getting missed weight scenarios, we’re getting all sorts of bits and bats on social media, but we’re not getting the real guy turning up inside the Octagon.” 

Till UFC 253, ‘The Eraser’ was climbing the ladder to the top with a 10-fight winning streak. But after losing to Adesanya, Costa has managed to win only one out of four fights in the UFC. According to Nick Peet, “It’s all gone wrong.” However, the #13 middleweight contender’s brother, Carlos Costa, stood in defense of ‘The Eraser’. 

In a conversation with Sherdog.com, ‘Borracha’ said, “That bad sequence just motivated my brother to give his very best in this camp, Kopylov is definitely a tough opponent, but I don’t see that fight going until the end of the third round.” He pointed out that the UFC understood the issues and gave Paulo Costa enough time to recover before fighting again. But will it be enough to get him a win over Kopylov at UFC 318?