Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa had their face off on Fight Island just days away from their anticipated middleweight title fight.
After months of trash-talking one another, Adesanya and Costa will finally meet in just two days on Saturday night. The two also had an intense face off on Fight Island following their press conference.
Israel Adesanya is coming off the first title defense of his middleweight title as he beat Yoel Romero by decision last time out. Before that, he knocked out Robert Whittaker to win the middleweight title after beating Kelvin Gastelum to win the interim belt.
Paulo Costa, meanwhile, is coming off a decision win over Romero last August. Just like Adesanya, he is also undefeated and holds notable wins over Uriah Hall and Johny Hendricks.
The two have become rivals and the fight is one Dana White has said will be the Fight of the Year. It also would not be surprising to see them have a rematch or even a trilogy.
UFC 253 goes down live on pay-per-view on Saturday, Sept. 26 on Fight Island. The card is as follows.
Main Card:
Israel Adesanya vs. Paulo Costa – middleweight title
Dominick Reyes vs. Jan Blachowicz – vacant light heavyweight title
Kai Kara-France vs. Brandon Royval – flyweight
Ketlen Vieira vs. Sijara Eubanks – bantamweight
Hakeem Dawodu vs. Zubaira Tukhugov – featherweight
Prelims:
Brad Riddell vs. Alex da Silva – lightweight
Diego Sanchez vs. Jake Matthews – welterweight
Shane Young vs. Ludovit Klein – featherweight
William Knight vs. Aleksa Camur – light heavyweight
Jeff Hughes vs. Juan Espino – heavyweight
Khadis Ibragimov vs. Danilo Marques – light heavyweight
