UFC: Paulo Costa out of Robert Whittaker bout because of ‘severe flu’ after Covid-19 diagnosis
- Brazilian fighter’s brother and coach says ‘the flu is taking a long time to go away … he hasn’t fully recovered yet’
- Carlos Costa adds UFC middleweight will get a chest X-ray and other exams done ‘to see if Covid has affected anything’
Paulo Costa’s difficult run of luck continues to hamper him.
The 29-year-old Brazilian middleweight contender has pulled out of the UFC’s April 17 Fight Night main event against Robert Whittaker because of severe flu symptoms, and has been replaced by Kelvin Gastelum.
Costa’s brother and coach told MMA Fighting he has yet to recover from a Covid-19 diagnosis. “Borrachinha” apparently got the coronavirus along with members of his family, about a month ago, and is still showing symptoms including a sore throat and secretion in his chest.
“We just want to postpone [the fight] a week or two so he can recover,” Carlos Costa told MMA Fighting on Tuesday. “He had Covid and then had the flu, and the flu is taking a long time to go away. We just want to postpone [the fight].”
“[Paulo’s] symptoms were moderate,” Carlos added. “But there’s an issue: He never stopped training. He continued training. He hasn’t fully recovered since then.
“His physical conditioning dropped a little bit, and then a few weeks ago he had this severe flu. We’ll get [a] chest X-ray and other exams done to see if Covid has affected anything.”
UFC: Holland says Adesanya ‘dared to be great, now knows he’s not’
Costa (13-1) said he was dealing with a host of issues related to cutting weight to make it to 185 pounds (84kg), which is the maximum for the UFC’s middleweight division, to fight New Zealander Adesanya (20-1).
He was supposed to fight former champ Whittaker, and now Gastelum has been named as his replacement. Before losing to Adesanya, Costa had reeled off a string of 13 straight victories, the last six of them in the UFC.
In August of 2019 he beat Yoel Romero via decision, which set up his middleweight title fight against Adesanya, who after beating Costa, moved up to light heavyweight, only to lose to current champion Jan Blachowicz.
The winner of Whittaker and Gastelum will now most likely get a title shot against Adesanya, who has declared his intentions to return to the division and defend his belt.
