Paulo Costa takes one last jab at USADA before the anti-doping agency leaves UFC at year end

With USADA leaving UFC, Paulo Costa had to work on another joke about the drug testing group while he still could.

The United States Anti-Doping Agency will no longer be administering drug tests to UFC fighters once 2023 closes out. Things seemed prickly between USADA and UFC throughout this year with a new body called Combat Sports Anti-Doping taking on drug testing duties come 2024.

Costa always playfully touts his secret juice, which is an allusion to performance-enhancing drugs. He has leaned into rhetoric from some online social media users that he uses PEDs, so he makes light of it with this secret juice joke. Posting a clearly fake USADA test, 'Borrachinha' posted on his X account and said:

"I was submitted to another anti-doping test today. Luckily I marked the correct answer."

Check out Paulo Costa's USADA joke below:

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Paulo Costa and his history with USADA

While he does get silly with it, Paulo Costa has legitimately and frequently been one of the most USADA-tested athletes on the roster of the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Late last year, he was among the top five most-tested fighters in the USADA's history with UFC alongside names like Jon Jones, TJ Dillashaw, Misha Cirkunov, and Jiri Prochazka.

The 32-year-old was tested by the drug testing organization during the early morning portion of his weight cut for his UFC 278 bout. This caused a prickly interaction at the weigh-ins where the former UFC middleweight title challenger flipped off a USADA agent after hitting his mark.

This was seen as such overreach and encroaching into fighter space during a vulnerable time that Dana White went out of his way to apologize to Costa about the whole ordeal and vowed for another combatant to be forced to go through that again.

Other than a rehydration oversight via using an IV circa 2019, Costa has had no drug test values for performance enhancers under the oversight of USADA.

The Minas Gerais, Brazil native, has been outside of the cage since that UFC 278 bout that saw Costa's best former middleweight champion, Luke Rockhold, on points in August last year.