Paulo Costa has given up on ever sharing the octagon with rival Khamzat Chimaev.<\/p>\n
The middleweight stars have been in an ongoing feud for several years, frequently lobbing insults at each other despite never being booked to fight one another. Chimaev put together an impressive unbeaten run to become UFC champion, while Costa was mired in a slump that he only recently broke out of with back-to-back wins over Azamat Murzakanov and Roman Kopylov.<\/p>\n
With Chimaev having lost the middleweight title to Sean Strickland at UFC 328, it\u2019s possible the timing could finally work out for Costa and Chimaev to settle their beef, but Costa doesn\u2019t expect Chimaev to bounce back from his disappointing defeat anytime soon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI know many of you guys want to have me facing \u2018Gourmet Chenchen Chimaev\u2019 a.k.a. \u2018Gourmet Chen Chen\u2019 next,\u201d Costa said in an Instagram video. \u201cI don\u2019t think this is going to happen. Why? Because he\u2019s broke. I think he\u2019s done. I don\u2019t think he\u2019ll be back. And even if he can regrow and be back, this will not be this year. So let\u2019s move on. This will not be this year. So let\u2019s move on, I have a bunch of fights, great fights, great matches to do.<\/p>\n
\u201cI want to fight as soon as possible. I think August is an amazing date, even July. So let\u2019s move on. I can fight middleweight, light heavyweight, even heavyweight, OK. We have a great host and let\u2019s move.\u201d<\/p>\n
Costa has reason to be skeptical. When Chimaev debuted in 2020, he broke the UFC record for the fastest turnaround between wins in his first two outings and then scored a 17-second knockout of Gerald Meerschaert to cap off one of a breakthrough campaign. Unfortunately for Chimaev fans, he has competed sporadically since then, logging just seven fights in six years and competing just once in 2023, 2024, 2025 (and, so far, 2026).<\/p>\n
Chimaev had a brutal bout of COVID-19 in 2021 and struggled with lingering health complications well after the disease had passed. That\u2019s one explanation for Chimaev\u2019s inactivity, though he has also dealt with visa and weight-cutting issues. Until Chimaev can be counted on to show up on fight night more consistently, Costa is moving on, with his sights set on a Strickland title fight, a grudge match with undefeated heavyweight Josh Hokit, or BKFC king Mike Perry.<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m excited to see you guys again as soon as possible and so stop talking about Gourmet Chen Chen, OK?\u201d Costa said. \u201cYou know I wish to do that fight before he lost, but mental strength is not one of his qualities, so he has a lot of problems to solve before [being] back. So that\u2019s it, let\u2019s move the page and let\u2019s move on.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would bring three names for you guys: Hokit, heavyweight. Strickland, middleweight. And Mike Perry.\u201d<\/p>\n
Watch Costa\u2019s clip below.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Paulo Costa has given up on ever sharing the octagon with rival Khamzat Chimaev. The middleweight stars have…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":694100,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,1347,785,85,787,1396],"class_list":["post-694099","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-latest-news","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694099","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=694099"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/694099\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/694100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=694099"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=694099"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=694099"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}