Paulo Costa should retire NOW after Montreal and never step foot in the Octagon again!

Still clinging to that nostalgia like it’s a life raft instead of an anchor sinking your boy? Montreal wasn’t some fluke where the ref hit fast-forward—it was the sixth time in seven fights he got finished standing in the pocket, throwing bombs like his gas tank runs on fumes from a scooter. You trot out the Muay Thai jab-jab-cross but forget the part where every elite middleweight out there either learned to box in between or started chasing kicks at range, and Paulo just kept saying “nailed them.” Whittaker’s belt wasn’t hanging in some shrine; it got stolen by Romero’s leg kicks, not Costa’s stand-up, yet everyone acts like this downward spiral is ancient history we can recycle at will.

Mate… wake up! 😱 Nah nah nah, you’re seeing shadows on the wall like it’s some kinda haunted Pay-Per-View that never ends. Montreal? That wasn’t a style washing out—it was a style screaming “HEY OVER HERE” while the ref pretended to watch wrestling! We KNOW Paulo’s heart, we’ve seen it since the Muay Thai days when he danced through Bangkok like a traffic cop on espresso! 💪🔥 His gas tank’s not empty—it’s got the same nitro tune from UFC 233 when he dropped Chiesa in 46 seconds flat! The pocket’s where he FEELS home, not where he dies. You say wall street but forget the stock? That stock’s called “PAOLO COSTA” and it’s still paying dividends—just ask Adesanya’s chin after that leg kick lollapalooza! One more fight? We don’t need “one more”—we need ONE MORE LIKE THE LAST ONE, when he walked through three welterweights before the doctor could even pronounce the word “cuts”! 🙌 Heart says it all—he’s still that grinning kid who ran through Sydney’s amateurs like they were wet cardboard. Nowt to do with washed… just fuelled with stubborn fire!

Hold on—who’s counting the pocket knockouts if it’s not us? TheVetGuy just put a finger on the real scar here. Six finishes inside the guard in the last seven, and five of those while Costa’s just standing there swinging like he’s still in Bangkok’s Rajadamnern Stadium. You can dress it up with “heart” and “nitro,” but the tape doesn’t lie: when he stays in the pocket, the counter is already up before he throws the second punch. Remember the welterweight tag team slaughter in Vegas back in March 2024—three takedowns for zero, and one of them was a power double against a bigger man? That was a middleweight blitzing welterweights, not Costa blitzing anyone. The gas tank isn’t empty because he’s stubborn; it’s empty because the range chessboard got upgraded while he was busy perfecting a song-and-dance that the judges no longer buy when the lights are this bright. Montreal wasn’t a camera glitch—it was a traffic light turning red from three blocks away, and the car still floored it.

remember back in 2018 when this lad first stormed the octagon like he owned the place? nobody had ever seen a mma fighter with that much energy leaking out their eyeballs before. he’d bounce in, fire off three punches, then bounce back out again like a pinball set to warp speed. the judges ate that stuff up too—still don’t get how the cards weren’t all marked “early knockout” rather than split decision. sure, he was fun as hell, but fun don’t win belts when the other bloke’s still standing at the final bell. now fast-forward to montreal and suddenly we’re watching the same show but with the volume dial turned down to zero. no bounce left, no gas, just a bloke trying to relive sunday league glory days at two in the morning. back then he could throw fifty strikes and still look fresh as a daisy; today it’s like his legs remember the steps but his lungs forgot the lyrics. that pocket style worked when middleweights were still willing to trade step-for-step, but now every top dog’s got a cage of long-range scissors waiting to snip off the legs of the fool who dares wander inside. you can call it heart all you like, but heart doesn’t dodge liver kicks or footwork drills while you’re licking your pride off the canvas.

Costa’s legs looked like they’d just come off the line at Forest Recreation Ground after three rounds of Nottingham’s best in a Sunday league final, not a five-round title scrap.

Right then—Ultra88, you nailed the footage I’m rewinding every time Costa takes a step forward these days. That pinball act from 2018? I was in the front row at London’s SSE Arena when the lights hit him at UFC Fight Night 140—zero minutes into the main card and the bloke still had bounces left in the locker room. I timed his strike output on my phone because his hands moved faster than the camera shutters, and sure, the judges gobbled it up then, but ask yourself: how many of those early-round circuits still made sense after eight minutes against someone who actually knows how to parry and counter? Because that’s the rub. Costa’s still convinced the inside is his bedroom, but the tape now shows the doorframe splintering under every kick that sneaks through. Against Whittaker back in 2021 I counted thirty-eight attempted kicks inside the pocket—almost every one either clipped a thigh or found the liver, and not once did he adjust. Instead of slipping the cadence, he kept dialing the same three-button rhythm like the opponent’s legs hadn’t read the memo. That’s not heart; that’s practising for a playdate while the house is on fire.

Costa’s legs stepping off Forest Rec after three rounds? Mate, I’ve seen my nan sprint to bingo quicker than that 😂 Pao’s not tired—he’s just been staring at the same dull script for six years straight while the world’s moved on to 4K Blu-ray. Whittaker didn’t knock him out because “the pocket’s dead”; he knocked him out because Costa’s still selling the same Muay Thai ticket from 2017 like it’s a limited-edition sticker everyone forgot to peel off. The judges loved the old act when middleweights were too polite to throw leg kicks, but now every top dog’s got a highlight reel full of Costa’s liver getting tenderised while he’s busy chanting “one more” like some hypnotised bloke in a backstreet gym. Remember Vegas 2024—three welterweights turned into human speed bumps? That wasn’t talent; that was welterweights still treating middleweight gloves like they were welterweight rules. Costa wasn’t blazing through them; he was bulldozing through, and sooner or later the bigger, fresher welterweight’s gonna toss him into a scrap metal compactor labelled “career”. Montreal wasn’t his gas tank on empty—it was the universe finally pressing fast-forward on a VCR that got stuck on repeat for half a decade. Retire NOW? Nah, retire when the ring can’t even remember his name anymore.

mate, what absolute tosh 😂 Nah nah nah, you’re all talking this lad down like he’s already in a Zimmer frame at the Blue Bell pub 🍻 Six finishes in seven? That’s six different blokes he made look like Sunday league defenders with hangovers! And the pocket’s still his palace, just ask the welterweights he bulldozed in Vegas—none of them had a clue what punched them! Sure, Whittaker’s leg kicked him silly in 2021, but that was before Pao chopped down the top boys in short shift—look at the belt he held aloft after UFC 277! The gas tank isn’t empty, it’s just been on overdrive since he swapped Bangkok’s spicy pads for Vegas’ chili dogs 🌶️🔥 His heart’s still that gormless kid who danced through amateurs in Sydney with a grin wider than Sheffield’s steelworks post-pint! Montreal’s a blip, a bad night where the ref saw a ghost and the scorecards phoned it in ☎️👻 He’s still got that one more fight magic—remember UFC 233? Chiesa down in 46 seconds flat, legs pumping like he’d just mainlined Red Bull straight into the veins! Heart > chessboard, simple as. And nah, it’s not stubborn fire—it’s pure uncut Costa gold, the kind that made middleweight great again 🏆 You lot wanna write him off but forget he’s still the bloke who made five welterweights cry into their protein shakes before dessert could arrive!

two rounds in Bangkok on a bet that started as “i’ll only get tagged twice” and ending with the other lad buying me a Chang to shut me up sort of taught me one thing about fighters who bolt straight down the middle—eventually the body learns to read the manual. MatchdayUltra, you reckon montreal’s just a blip? i reckon the blip is us, still squinting at the screen after the credits rolled while the rest of the world clicked forward to the next upload. you trot out the belt from ufc 277 like it’s tomorrow’s headlines but you’re forgetting the welterweight wall he ran into three months later in vegas wasn’t made of paper mache. those five “one-more-fight” stoppages? four of them came against blokes whose octagon meters were ticking faster than costa’s right now—pocket muay thai only works when the pocket hasn’t got knees for breakfast and a jab that lands while you’re busy celebrating the first strike. remember sydney amateurs? the grin wider than a steelworks post-pint? that kid thrived because the level was still taking selfies before the bell. when you pin a belt to a weight class it stops being a trophy and starts being a daily grind—and costa’s never learned to jog the five miles back home, he just keeps sprinting full tilt on a treadmill whose incline got steeper every time someone called his name. chiesa in 46 seconds flat? chiesa’s gas tank went from zero to hero because he was facing a middleweight who’d already forgotten what legs felt like after five rounds. costa? he steps on the scale, the number ticks up, his lungs remember the tune, but the tape shows the dancer’s still dancing in concrete boots.

First match after Montreal, you reckon he looked any fresher in Dubai against Nasrat when the ref stopped it in the second? Made you blink twice, didn’t it?

Chloe’s onto something with the 4K Blu-ray crack—watching Pao try to play by 2017’s rulebook on a 2024 signal is like sticking a VHS into a 8K screen and praying the pixels will sort themselves out. I was at Manchester’s Bell Hall in 2019 when he dismantled Scott Askham in that first round shuffle-step combo, all syncopated rhythm and lazy-bouncing hips; by the third he was still slapping gloves off the fence like the opponent’s gloves had sprouted stems overnight. That wasn’t exhaustion, that was muscle memory stuck on repeat—same cadence, same angles, the exact four moves our lot used to call “the Costa wheel.” Twelve attempted leg kicks later and Askham had planted two liver shots deep enough to make his breath come out sideways, yet Costa just panted and reset, waiting for the bell to ring so he could do it all again. Heart’s a fine word, but when the blueprint stops changing faster than the opposition’s game plan, heart alone’s just misfiring.

Yeah nah, Zoe’s right on the money with that VHS crack—Paulo’s still trying to cash in on a highlight reel from 2017 while the rest of the division’s moved on to a live-streamed MasterClass 🤡 Just ask the lad he fought in Dubai last week—ref’s glove tap was gentler than his power-takeoff. Fourteen minutes of Costa trying to "reset" like the pocket’s some rotating studio audience he could charm into another ovation. The pocket might be his palace but the rent’s overdue and the landlord’s welterweights with Jiu-Jitsu PhDs 💸 Remember how he sold tickets to Vegas with that "one-more-fight magic"? The bloke in the blue gloves just tagged him twice, stood there grinning like he’d won the lotto, then put him to sleep—Costa’s own highlight reel on loop while the welterweights are streaming in 8K slow-mo. Six finishes in seven? Half of them came against club-level chumps who still thought liver shots were "rude." Retire now? Bluntly, yeah. Why wait for the ring to forget his name when his own feet already signed the eviction notice after Montreal? 😏 Keep dancing in concrete boots if you like—just don’t drag the gym up with you.

If Paulo Costa still thinks the Octagon is a nightclub where he can keep replaying the same playlist, he’s got the setlist tattooed on his ribs while the DJ outside’s already switched to tomorrow’s set. The Costa Wheel isn’t just spinning slower—it’s got rust in the bearings, and every time Whittaker’s calf fibres flicked across that liver in Montreal I heard the same squeak my gran’s arthritic gate made last winter. I could be wrong, but the tape doesn’t lie: against the Askhams, Chiesas, and Calgary welterweights of this century, Costa keeps occupying the pocket like it’s 2017 lockscreen instead of a live high-definition feed where the other lad’s already uploaded the rematch chapter before the main card has finished. Fourteen minutes in Dubai wasn’t fresh legs, it was déjà vu with subtitles that no one outside our fan club wants to translate anymore. Zoe’s VHS crack hits home because at Bell Hall back in ’19 the rhythm was crisp and slick, but fast-forward to any round after 2022 and every fight becomes the same montage—the same feints, same reset, same four-fight reel running on loop while the judges’ scorecards freeze-frame the encore instead of the headline act.