“Doctors don’t allow me to fight” - Paulo Costa accidentally lets slip UFC 294 withdrawal in Twitter spat with ‘dirt mouth’ fan

Paulo Costa might have accidentally let his status for UFC 294 slip after a spat with a fan on Twitter.

A fan took aim at the former UFC middleweight title challenger by bringing up past incidents of him missing weight and pulling out of scheduled fights. The fan then suggested that the promotion even cut their ties with the current No.6 ranked middleweight as his most recent win was against Luke Rockhold, who is no longer competing in the promotion, writing:

"Paulo Costa came in overweight for the Vettori fight, has pulled out against Robert Whittaker, Jared Cannonier, Ikram Aliskerov and now Khamzat Chimaev ffs...And he doesn’t have a single win over any active middleweights...Just cut this twitter clown already."

Tweet directed towards 'Borrachinha'

The tweet caught the attention of Paulo Costa himself, who was obviously upset about the comments being made. 'Borrachinha' commented on the tweet, where he put the fan on blast and explained his reasoning.

He wrote:

"Shut up u f**k dirt mouth. I never missed weight we both agreed 205 . I never pulled out fight I don’t fight who I never signed up for 50 k . Staphylococcus infection is no joke u bi*ch . At all I refuse pulling out this match but doctors don’t allow me to fight"

Response to the tweet

In doing so, Paulo Costa unintentionally broke the news that he would be forced to withdraw from his fight against Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 294, which was later confirmed by UFC CEO Dana White.

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Dana White announces that Kamaru Usman will replace Paulo Costa at UFC 294

UFC CEO Dana White has been busy this week as he and the matchmakers were forced to scramble and find replacements for both the main and co-main event of UFC 294.

Last night, it was made official that Alexander Volkanovski would replace Charles Oliveira and challenge Islam Makhachev in the main event. Today, there was more unfortunate news as Paulo Costa was officially pulled from his fight with Khamzat Chimaev due to a staph infection in his elbow.

The UFC CEO took to social media and made the announcement that former welterweight champion Kamaru Usman will now replace 'Borrachinha' on short notice and fight 'Borz' in a middleweight bout. It will be his first fight since his majority decision loss to Leon Edwards in their trilogy fight this past March at UFC 286.