Melquizael Costa’s first time headlining a UFC event comes in a busy night for the sport on May 16. The UFC has gone head-to-head with promotions like PFL and Bellator in recent years, but MVP’s first MMA show on Netflix gives Costa and his opponent, Arnold Allen, competition like no other.
MVP MMA will be headlined Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano and the main card also includes stars like Nate Diaz, Mike Perry and Francis Ngannou. The UFC Vegas 117 line-up has Allen vs. Costa on top, preceded by Doo
Ho Choi vs. Daniel Santos in the co-main event slot. The only ranked fighters on the UFC card are Ketlen Vieira and Jacqueline Cavalcanti, who face off in the prelims.
“It’s going to be at the APEX, but it’ll still be the main event,” Costa told MMA Fighting. “There won’t be ads during my walkout music. I was pissed off about that last time [laughs]. The show will be ready for me. The only thing is I’ll be competing with the people over at Netflix. If it was the Ronda from years ago, okay. But it’s today’s Ronda, so I’m good with it. I trust my skills [laughs].”
Costa expects fans to have “plenty of time” to watch his fights on Paramount+ before MVP MMA’s top stars walk out to the hexagon. If his fights coincides with one of them, though, Costa believes his style is more exciting than potential “boring” bouts over on Netflix.
“If you asked me whether I’d rather open [the UFC 328] main card or headline this event, I’d still choose to headline this one because it’s my first time on a poster,” Costa said. “I don’t care if Canelo Alvarez is fighting the same night, I’m not even paying attention to that. Doesn’t matter, man. I’m still going to steal the show. I trust the way I fight, people are going to enjoy it. And besides, there’ll probably be a lot of boring fights on Netflix. People will say, ‘Melk is fighting, leave it on this instead.’”
“Have you ever seen anything come easy for me, brother? It always comes with some kind of challenge,” he continued. “Like, ‘You’re going to headline the card but you’ll have to compete with Ronda.’ Alright then, deal. She fights for attention over there, I fight for attention over here [laughs].”
Costa predicted back in February he would fight three times in 2026 “and the last one will already be for the belt.” He maintains that, confident that beating Allen could put him straight in a title fight next. Costa expects UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski to “run through” Movsar Evloev and immediately retire, leaving the path open with a vacant belt.
“The UFC is fair, too,” Costa said why he thinks Evloev is next. “It’s not enough to just keep barking, you know? If Jean [Silva] had knocked out Evloev then okay, there’d be a storyline and all that. But he’s coming off one win. And his last loss was to a guy who lost twice to Volkanovski. It’s Evloev’s turn now.”
“I’m putting it in my head that after this fight, my next one will be straight for the belt,” he continued. “It could even be against Jean. Yair Rodriguez is hiding somewhere nobody knows about [laughs]. Aljamain Sterling won his last fight, but it wasn’t that kind of performance. There’s [Lerone] Murphy, who lost, Diego Lopes… If Diego Lopes loses [to Steve Garcia], then the division gets messy again. But even if he wins, he’s probably not getting the title shot either, so that leaves the guys who are rising up the rankings.”
Costa will have his wife and son in Las Vegas for the first time Saturday as they were both given visas to enter the United States, and expects the UFC to “fast-track me” in 2026 after he becomes the first man to stop Allen.
“It’s a perfect match-up,” Costa said. “Arnold Allen is a striker, but after he eats a couple of my kicks he’s going to want to take me down. Everybody does [laughs]. But I don’t see this fight going to the distance. I believe I’m going to knock Allen out. I’m going to be the first guy to knock out Arnold. He’ll be the third straight opponent I beat who had never been knocked out before.”
“People ask me what I picture after this fight,” he continued. “I don’t picture anything. I picture myself beating the hell out of Arnold Allen and everybody’s going to be scared of me. Everybody’s going to be scared. And honestly, I’m already used to it. I love it when people say, ‘Ah, this time he’s not gonna do it.’ I’ve heard that my whole life, so it actually makes me happy when people say it. I’d rather be the underdog than the favorite. So against Arnold Allen, a lot of people think if I win it’ll be by decision and all that, but man… I’m ready for a decision too. But there’s no mystery. I’m going in there and smashing him with kicks. He knows it, I know it, everybody knows it. He just doesn’t know when it’s coming.”
