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Marvin Vettori claims Paulo Costa intentionally showed him signs of weakness heading into their recent fight to try and deceive him. 'The Italian Dream' clearly didn't bite the bait, if there was any. He is happy to have emerged victorious via unanimous decision in his light heavyweight encounter with Costa at UFC Vegas 41.
During an interview with ESPN MMA following the fight, Vettori said he could sense a bit of weakness in Paulo Costa heading into the fight but also felt that he couldn't rely on the same. Marvin Vettori believes Costa didn't look like his usual self throughout fight week. However, Vettori chose to focus more on himself instead of his opponent:
"There was a little bit of weirdness on him. A lot of times I'm trying to see where my opponent is at but this time I felt like I had something in my mind where like he would give out a lot of signs of weakness but it felt fake to me. I'm like I can't rely on that because he'll have something... I could sense a lot of weakness from him, he was a little bit weird from his side the way he was acting. He wasn't the same Paulo Costa of many other fights but I could feel I couldn't rely on that in a sense. Even at the weigh-ins, I was like pi**ed, I just went and f him off I was really not paying too much attention on it but more about myself," Vettori said.
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Check out Marvin Vettori's interview with ESPN below:
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Paulo Costa blames failed weight cut on injured left bicep
Paulo Costa and Marvin Vettori were initially set to compete in a middleweight bout at UFC Vegas 41. However, after Costa failed to make weight, the fight was changed to a catchweight bout at 195 lbs. To the surprise of many, Paulo Costa failed to make 195lbs as well and the bout finally took place at light heavyweight.
Costa also conceded 20 percent of his purse for the fight to Vettori for failing to make weight. Following the fight, he said that an injury to his left bicep was the reason why he struggled to make weight for the fight.
