UFC has been in heated negotiations with one of their stars. For ages, the fans and even other UFC athletes were reluctant to believe how tiny Costa’s paychecks are.
Costa reportedly cashed in just $65,000 to show and $65,000 to win against former Middleweight champion Luke Rockhold.
On this contract Costa faced Yoel Romero, Marvin Vetori and even competed for the title. It’s almost inconceivable that a title bout in the most popular MMA promotion doesn’t even guarantee a $100,000.
Recently, UFC copped to announcing Paulo Costa Robert Whittaker event before the contracts were signed. The two were booked for UFC 284.
According to Costa, he was given an unfair contract offer. The No. 6 middleweight said that the UFC does not pay Brazilian athletes fairly. Also, he has been extremely open about his contract issues with the organization.
Paula Costa told Ariel Helwani:
“I think they just actually offer very low numbers for Brazilians. I don’t know what they figure. Maybe they figure, ‘ah, that motherf**ker lives in Brazil, the jungle, they don’t need real money because the currency is like five times less than dollars so let’s pay bulls**t.’ That thing that I told you before, the mentality of Brazilians is, ‘okay, I agree, let’s do.'”
Costa went on:
“I did that and I know the Brazilians do that a lot. No no, doesn’t care who you want to put to fight me. I don’t care about the number or where my opponent is on the rank just to go there and fight and that’s okay, but this is horrible for the business. I really don’t care for who I fight, but if it’s worth money, I will take leverage from that.”
Costa has said that he never signed a contract to compete against Robert Whittaker at UFC 284.
UFC publicized the matchup in order to boost ticket sales for the event – which is set to happen in Australia, Whittaker’s homeland.
Costa did say that if the organization made him a good offer deal, he would be open to Whittaker event:
“UFC promoted that post, me against Robert… That was pretty, pretty fake news because I didn’t get a contract or terms or nothing to fight him… They just said, ‘if you want to fight Whittaker, let’s do that fight’, but I cannot do that fight, fight the No.1 or No.2 high level guy like Whittaker for the same money that I’m getting since 2017. Not make sense.”
Costa was targeting a hefty $500,000 dollar payday. And according to his account, UFC offered a long-term contract that would add up to that sum – not guarantee it per bout.
“I will not [fight] for the same money. It’s a main event in Australia. The people from Australia will be there. It’s a great fight. So [$70,000] is not enough for that. Just go a little bit higher, and they said no.”
“[UFC CBO] Hunter Campbell, said ‘We need to make a new six-fight deal.’ I said, ‘No, I’m not going to talk about six fights more. I talk about that one.’ That makes sense. Why you bring six fights in? I’m talking about that one, to fight Whittaker, not six more. It doesn’t make sense to me.”
“I’m not looking for six more fights, not at the numbers that he sent me. I don’t think this makes sense. I’m talking about one fight specifically, not six. I did this in the past, five years ago, 2017, and I’m paying for this mistake even now, because I’m so [outdated].”