It seems that Paulo Costa vs Robert Whittaker, one of the most awaited fights for next year, is yet to be made official, as none other than Costa himself claims not to have signed any contract for the fight.
Paulo Costa wants new UFC contract before facing Robert Whittaker
The middleweight contest was announced more than a month ago, on October 20, that ‘Borrachinha’ would face Whittaker at UFC 284, scheduled for February 11th next year, in Australia.
In an interview with Submission Radio, the middleweight expressed his willingness to face the former champion but said he is still waiting for the company to make the proposal official.
“This fight is one of my favorite fights that I wanted to make because I appreciate the fighter that Robert is,” said Costa. “He’s very good. Since I saw him fight, I thought, I want to fight this guy because he’s savage, you know – he puts a lot of desire in his fights. So it should be a great fight, and I’d I love to make that fight. It’s one of my favorite fights to make, of course. But I don’t have any deal to do this fight. This is the bad part. I want to do this fight, but I don’t have a deal.”
The main obstacle so far, according to Costa himself, is that he considers his current scholarship outdated and wants a financial adjustment to sign a new contract. His current deal with the UFC has just one more fight left, but he intends to renegotiate before accepting his next commitment.
“UFC didn’t send me nothing – no contract, no offer yet. It’s a weird situation. I dunno what’s going on with the UFC. Because you guys know, the UFC used to publish some fights when the fight is close, when the deal is on. But it’s not in this case. They asked me about Robert, if I should fight him. I said, yes, of course. It’ll be a pleasure to fight him. But they didn’t send any offer to fight him yet,” the Brazillian added. [H/T MMA Junkie]