Paulo Costa turned again the clock on Saturday with a classic efficiency to beat Roman Kopylov within the UFC 318 co-main occasion.
A nasty show of kicking energy and total placing acumen allowed Costa to only chop down Kopylov spherical after spherical. He got here near a end within the second spherical after scoring a knockdown however Kopylov confirmed sufficient will energy to outlive, though he knew the battle had slipped away from him.
The judges scored the battle 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 with Costa getting the win.
“It was a tricky second for me,” Costa stated after coming into the battle off two straight losses. “I put loads of work, loads of work on my thoughts. It’s not good to get some losses. My technique, my recreation plan was to remain right here and rise up with him.”
Costa opened the battle with a wide range of kicks to the legs and physique earlier than going again up high to the pinnacle together with his punching mixtures. Kopylov fired again with some strong mixtures of his personal but in addition doing his greatest to keep away from any of the large haymakers coming from Costa.
Costa was completely abusing Kopylov’s lead leg with kicks and that’s when he uncorked a large punch that despatched the Russian’s mouthpiece flying. Kopylov was pressured to dive for a leg with Costa dropping hammer fists in succession in an try to get the end.
Kopylov held on and reset to start out the second spherical however he simply couldn’t get a lot offense going with Costa persevering with to dig to the legs with kicks after which punishing him with punches to the pinnacle and physique. Halfway by means of the spherical, Costa unloaded an enormous proper hand that stumbled Kopylov and despatched him backwards in direction of the cage.
Kopylov was caught within the mud, unable to do a lot of something and he was simply consuming a barrage of strikes from the one-time middleweight title challenger.
With solely 5 minutes remaining, Kopylov didn’t appear to shift into desperation mode regardless of being down two rounds. He did get somewhat extra lively however Kopylov wasn’t threatening Costa sufficient to actually again him off.
Kopylov did lastly handle to sting Costa with a tough proper hand late within the battle however he simply didn’t comply with as much as probably overwhelm him. As time was working out, Costa managed to discover a residence for an additional stiff proper hand to assist safe the victory.
Again within the win column, Costa wasted no time turning his consideration to his outdated rival Khamzat Chimaev, who he claimed throughout battle week despatched direct messages to his spouse on social media, which solely added gasoline to the hearth when it got here to a want to battle the Chechen mauler.
“All people is aware of I hate that man, everyone is aware of who, that motherf*cker [Khamzat] Chimaev,” Costa shouted. “He’s a giant assh*le. He says unhealthy issues about me about [my wife]. He’s a coward. I’m going to chase you. I can’t cease till I get to you.”
