Paulo Costa has bigger things on his mind than running back a fight with Khamzat Chimaev.
As he prepares to take on former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker in the UFC 298 co-main event, the one-time title challenger addressed Chimaev after a nasty infection in Costa’s elbow forced him to drop out of their previously scheduled matchup this past October. With Costa unavailable, Chimaev earned a razor-close decision win over Kamaru Usman, who accepted the fight and made his middleweight debut on just 10 days’ notice.
Costa admits that there’s no love lost with Chimaev — a fighter he nearly got into a brawl with at the UFC Performance Institute not that long ago — but he has his sights on gold in the future. In other words, he’s not going to waste his time fighting backward against someone still seeking a win over a ranked opponent at 185 pounds.
“Everybody knows I don’t like the guy,” Costa said of Chimaev on Wednesday. “But I don’t think too many people take him seriously anymore. He just stopped fighting. He didn’t beat anybody in the middleweight division, top contenders or even top 15. He didn’t beat anybody in the top 15 in the middleweight division. How can you take this guy seriously?
“He could barely beat [Kamaru] Usman on 10 days, short notice. Usman is a welterweight. He didn’t cut weight to middleweight and everybody saw that fight. I was there. But after I beat Whittaker, I will not hear his name. F*** him.”
Chimaev hasn’t fought since beating Usman, although rumors surfaced recently that he could be in consideration for a marquee spot at the historic UFC 300 card in April. The undefeated Chechen subsequently withdrew his name from consideration because Ramadan ends just days before the April 13 event takes place, which requires all practicing Muslims to forgo food and water during daytime hours for an entire month.
Instead, Chimaev floated the idea that he might return in June when the UFC lands in Saudi Arabia for the first time.
No matter when Chimaev fights next, Costa hopes he finally faces a top-15 ranked opponent at middleweight, but Costa promises that opponent won’t be him.
“He needs to do something,” Costa said. “He needs to beat somebody at least in the top 10 in the middleweight [division]. He didn’t yet and I don’t think he’s capable to do that. That’s my thought about him.
“Of course I would love to fight him in Abu Dhabi. It didn’t happen. I was frustrated but I’m here right now and I’m going to fight a guy much more qualified than him. Whittaker has better credentials than he ever had. I don’t believe he’s going to jump and fight for the belt before me.”
As far as Whittaker goes, Costa expects his upcoming fight to serve as a much stiffer test than Chimaev.
That being said, Whittaker is coming off a disappointing loss to current middleweight champion Dricus du Plessis, and there’s no telling if that was just a one fight anomaly or possibly the start of a bigger decline in Whittaker’s career.
“He’s a former champ. I just hope his best days are not gone,” Costa said of Whittaker. “Because I want to put his name on my record as a good name that I beat.”
Costa expects that a win on Saturday will vault him back to the top of the division and he doesn’t believe much will stand in his way then to get another title shot. In fact, Costa predicts he’ll be next in line for the belt after he eliminates Whittaker at UFC 298.
“After my fight against Whittaker, for sure [I will fight for the title],” Costa said. “I don’t see other way different than that after beating Whittaker Saturday. I have no other way to go.
“I think after I beat him, when you look at the whole division, you have a popular guy that fights the way people want to see, people like to see the fights going on, it’s me. So beating him, I will be next in line.”
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