Alessandro Costa floored Stewart Nicoll with a left hook to the liver to win a performance bonus in April, and has agreed to step in on less than 10 days\u2019 notice to fight Matt Schnell at UFC Vegas 118 on June 6. He will then fly to Washington, DC to corner his friend Diego Lopes at UFC White House on June 14, and hopes to keep the spirits up with another finish.<\/p>\n
Lopes faces Steve Garcia on the historic card at the White House lawn on June 14, and Costa said that his recent knockout, as well as Alexa Grasso\u2019s incredible performance over Maycee Barber a week before, serves as motivation for the entire group.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur team is getting back on its feet again,\u201d Costa told MMA Fighting. \u201cIt all started with Alexa. She had that beautiful knockout \u2014 or submission, kind of both at the same time. I talked to her all week, she was texting me and encouraging me too. Her win really motivated me. I got very, very excited. And I could feel that energy, like everything could work out.\u201d<\/p>\n
Costa said that the team opted to have fighters on separate cards so they could focus entirely on each athlete individually, and it paid off with two bonuses. \u201cIt\u2019s a way our team works really well,\u201d he said, and \u201cnow it\u2019s Diego\u2019s turn.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDiego is on the same vibe, man,\u201d Costa said. \u201cHe\u2019s really fired up and happy. We\u2019re not underestimating his opponent, we know he\u2019s ranked for a reason. Diego is very pleased with the two results and for him it\u2019s also a huge motivation. He\u2019s excited too. I see him doing a great job. I told him, \u2018You\u2019re next. You have to do the same or better than us, you can\u2019t do less. You\u2019re the leader [of the team], you\u2019ve got to do more.\u2019 I think he took that not as pressure, but as extra motivation.\u201d<\/p>\n
Costa was in Oklahoma helping Diego Lopes in camp when the call came to replace Imanol Rodriguez against Schnell, and that\u2019s an opponent he knows very well. They were matched up to fight in September 2024 but the Brazilian had to withdraw with an injury. Costa asked for this fight to be contested at 130 pounds because making the flyweight limit on short notice \u201cwould have been complicated.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSchnell is a very experienced guy,\u201d Costa said. \u201cHe was on TUF as well and has been with the company for many years, but I think his game hasn\u2019t really evolved. He\u2019s the same fighter he was three or four fights ago. My confidence is much stronger now. I\u2019m coming off a win against a tough opponent, and that\u2019s key. Of course, I\u2019m not underestimating him, I know how dangerous he is. A lot has changed for me over the last two years. I\u2019ve gained a lot of experience through wins and losses, and I\u2019ve learned a lot. The good thing is that I had already done a camp specifically for him before, so we just put the game plan back together.\u201d<\/p>\n
Costa is 3-3 under the UFC banner with all three wins coming by way of knockout \u2014 and all worthy of performance bonuses. He has yet to receive the six-figure bonus check for his latest victory as the pay only comes after the athlete is drug tested post-fight and the result comes back clean, so he jokes the UFC can already change it to $200,000 to add the a bonus for his upcoming UFC Vegas 118 win.<\/p>\n
\u201cA bonus changes any athlete\u2019s life, especially now that it\u2019s $100,000,\u201d Costa said. \u201cIt\u2019s still on my mind. Even though I won the last one, I\u2019m even hungrier now.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Alessandro Costa floored Stewart Nicoll with a left hook to the liver to win a performance bonus in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":719637,"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-719636","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\/719636","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=719636"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/719636\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/719637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=719636"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=719636"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=719636"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}