The Ultimate Fighting Championship bout between “The Reaper” Robert Whittaker, 33, of Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and “Borrachinha” Paulo Costa, 32, of Belo Horizonte, Minas Gerais, Brazil is finally happening. They were supposed to headline “UFC Vegas 24” at the UFC Apex in Enterprise, Nevada, USA on April 17, 2021.
On March 16, 2021, however, Costa withdrew from the fight because of illness. Kelvin Gastelum, who replaced Costa, lost to Whittaker via unanimous decision during the fight night.
Whittaker’s most recent was was on September 3, 2022 at “UFC Fight Night 209” in Paris, France were he defeated Marvin Vettori via unanimous decision. The Australian mixed martial artist lost to Israel Adesanya via unanimous decision at “UFC 271” in Houston, Texas, USA on February 12, 2022 and Dricus du Plessis at “UFC 290” in Paradise, Nevada on July 8, 2023.
Losing to du Plessis downgraded Whittaker’s professional MMA record to 24 wins and 7 losses. On the other hand, Costa has 14 wins and 2 losses.
Costa lost to Adesanya via technical knockout at “UFC 253” in Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates on September 27, 2020 and to Vettori via unanimous decision at “UFC Vegas 41” in Enterprise on October 23, 2021. On August 20, 2022, the Brazilian MMA fighter defeated Luke Rockhold via unanimous decision at “UFC 278” in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA.
In 2023, Costa went on hiatus. He was recently in Dubai, United Arab Emirates where he had wrestling training with ONE Championship heavyweight fighter “Reug Reug” Oumar Kane, 31, of Dakar, Senegal.
On February 17, 2024, “El Matador” Ilia Topuria, 26, of Alicante, Spain will challenge UFC Featherweight Champion Alexander Volkanovski, 35, of Windang, New South Wales, Australia in the main event of “UFC 298” at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California, USA. In the co-main event, Whittaker and Costa will battle it out in the middleweight division.
Whittaker is 6’0″ tall while Costa is 6’1″ tall. They are both a black belt in Brazilian jiu-jitsu.
CONAN Daily 