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Paulo Costa lost the biggest fight of his MMA career in September 2020, losing via second-round TKO to UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya in Abu Dhabi, and highlighted the lack of sleep as the one of the reasons he couldn’t perform so well at UFC 253. Five months later, “Borrachinha” reveals he drank a bottle of wine the night he fought “The Last Stylebender” on Fight Island to try to sleep.
In a video posted to his YouTube channel on Saturday, Costa said Adesanya had “every credit for knocking me out,” but was weakened by the time he entered the Octagon.
“I was a little drunk [when] I had a hangover fight, maybe, ”Costa said in Portuguese. “I couldn’t sleep because of the [leg] cramps. Keep in mind that the fight takes place at 9 a.m. [local time], you have to get up at 5 o’clock to get ready, stretch, wrap your hands. The UFC told us to wake up at 5 a.m. to go to the arena to fight. I hadn’t slept until 2:30 p.m.
“It was my mistake and I don’t blame anyone else, it’s something I chose [to do], but, to try to sleep, because I had to sleep since I was awake for 24 hours, I had wine, too much wine, a bottle [of wine] to try to pass out. I had a drink and didn’t work. Two drinks didn’t work. Half a bottle didn’t work. I had everything.
In a previous video posted to his YouTube channel in November, Costa said: “I shouldn’t have fought, I should have postponed it until next weekend or so.”
“It was a different feeling,” he said in the video released on Saturday. “I’m still very active in every fight. There is some apprehension, fear of getting hit and so on, then you are sure. In this fight, the championship fight, I was drowsy, yawning and worried. It was weird. I didn’t feel anything, not even agony, “Wow, I’m fighting for the title.” Not even that. I was too calm. All this calm scared me.
Costa returns to action on April 17, facing former champion Robert Whittaker in a five-round Main Event in Las Vegas. For this fight, the Brazilian middleweight promises fans to see “an aggressive Borrachinha”.
“Aside from the Adesanya fight where a lot of things happened, many factors that didn’t allow me to do it well, it will be the same Paulo forever, going for the KO anytime,” he said. he declared. “This is who I am. I did not change. The point is, I had 20.10 percent of my ability in Adesanya’s fight. We had to change the strategy in the locker room. “Don’t attack him, wait the first two rounds”, which was a mistake. Today we know it was a mistake, but it’s easy to talk about.
“The good thing would have been not to fight like I was, because I was different. I was different because I was in terrible conditions. I didn’t sleep, I had leg cramps all the time, before I walked towards the octagon, in the locker room. There is a lot we can say, but this won’t be the case for this video. But the sports commission came twice to the locker room to check my leg, remove the oil that we had on it to get a massage. But, I repeat, I was very confident. I wanted to fight, I thought I could do it. I just think the strategy was wrong, not to attack him.
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