Following a strong victory over Roman Kopylov at UFC 318, Paulo Costa is denying he was having any health issues coming into the event.
Fans were certainly concerned for “Borrachinha” following the UFC 318 pre-fight press conference when the Brazilian fighter had a mysterious case of the shakes. He literally couldn’t sit still through the event, making some worried that he might not be 100% healthy for his New Orleans scrap.
Costa vs. Kopylov was originally scheduled for UFC 317 but was pushed back a month due to a mystery illness on Costa’s end.
“I got very sick,” he revealed during UFC 318 media week. “I don’t know exactly, a kind of virus. I could not train for two weeks, I was very sick. I never before got a virus so hard like that.”
Paulo never ended up explaining the press conference appearance before the fight, and following his win he passed the incident off as anticipation for the upcoming bout, which was do-or-die for his future as a UFC attraction.
“First of all, the people said I was shaking,” Costa said at the UFC 318 post-fight press conference. “I was not sick or nothing. I didn’t use any powder or something like that. I was just very motivated, very focused, very locked in on this fight.”
“In the backstage, I was telling to myself, relaying to myself the whole time, ‘This is war. Go to war. Do your thing. You need this victory. I will not be back without this victory. This is mine. I’m back.’ And so I was locked in. I was 100 percent focused on this fight, this match. I know this was a very tough opponent. So I put too much concentration on this fight and this victory.”
The win over Kopylov breaks a two-fight losing skid and hopefully turns the page on a 1-4 run that saw “Borrachinha” go from fighting for the middleweight title to hanging onto a spot in the top 15 rankings by his fingernails.
This win may not move him up too much — he was ranked No. 13 and Kopylov No. 14 coming into UFC 318 — but it’s a big step in the right direction, especially considering his return to a more violent and active fighting style.
This story originally appeared on MMA Mania
