At UFC 253, Israel Adesanya defended his middleweight title for the second time as he scored a second-round TKO win over Paulo Costa.
It was an incredible performance from Adesanya but after the fight, Costa said something was wrong but he never said what. Now, he revealed he drank a bottle of wine the night before and was hungover during the fight.
“I was kind of drunk [when] I fought, maybe, on a hangover,” Costa said in Portuguese on his YouTube channel (via MMAFighting). “I couldn’t sleep because of the [leg] cramps. Keep in mind that the fight happens at 9 a.m. [local time], we have to wake up at 5 to get ready, stretch, wrap the hands. The UFC told us to wake up at 5 in the morning to go to the arena to fight. I hadn’t slept until 2:30.
“It was my mistake and I don’t blame anyone else, it was something I chose [to do], but, in order 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 blackout. I had a glass and didn’t work. Two glasses, it didn’t work. Half bottle, didn’t work. I had it all.”
Now, after he said that, MMAJunkie caught up with Israel Adesanya who said it’s a funny excuse.
“That’s just funny,” Adesanya said. “There’s certain things I’ve done before some of my fights in the past where I learnt my mistakes, but I went in and got my job done. Some people aren’t cut out for that lifestyle.”
Although Paulo Costa is making excuses for the loss, he still is targeting a rematch against Adesanya. He’s set to face Robert Whittaker on April 17 and if he wins, it’s likely he will get a rematch.
However, for Israel Adesanya, he believes Costa just needs to accept the loss and swallow his ego.
“I’ll tell you one thing: The best thing to do in his position is accept the fact he lost,” Adesanya said. “He got his ass whooped. The fact that he keeps trying to make all these excuses, it’s only going to do him worse in the long run. He’s making excuses because his ego can’t handle the fact that ‘The Skinny Clown’ whooped his ass badly then double-tapped him twice.
“Just swallow your ego. You got your ass whooped. Get back to the drawing board and reassess your whole game. You can’t just rest on that because if you do – this is my advice – you’ll never get far in life, or in this game.”
