When Paulo Costa first laid eyes on Isreal Adesanya, sparks flew. All the way back to Adesanya’s interim UFC title win in 2019, ‘Borrachinha’ was calling his shot. Some day he and Adesanya would fight. And until that day came, Costa would make a point to keep up a constant war of words with the UFC champion. From cageside at UFC 248, he even made enough of a spectacle of himself that he had to be escorted out of the arena.
The fact that all his theatrics counted for next to nothing on the day, and often wallowed in the lowest of lowbrow humor, was a shame.