Magomed Ankalaev wants to fight for a UFC title again, but he’s willing to settle for a grudge match with Paulo Costa.
“Borrachinha” let his feelings be known about Saturday’s lackluster UFC Abu Dhabi main event, which saw Ankalaev dominate a monotonous fight against Bogdan Guskov before finishing in the fifth round. Much of the headlining bout—including the anticlimactic finish—was met with a chilly reception from the fans at Etihad Arena, and Costa echoed those sentiments on social media with a scathing
comment:
“By the power of the Almighty, I shall save this weight class from monotony and boredom,” Costa wrote.
Ankalaev was asked about the comment at the UFC Abu Dhabi post-fight press conference and he welcomed the chance to silence Costa.
“I’m already the No. 1 contender, but as we know in this division right now our champion is hurt,” Ankalaev said via a Russian translator. “We don’t know when he’s going to come back, so if he’s going to take a long time to come back, I would like to stay active and I believe I saw something or heard something that Costa wrote something in my direction. I’m not sure what he was trying to say, whether he was trying to bother me or was trying to get my attention, so if it is indeed that the champion’s going to be out for a little while, then potentially maybe we can have a good fight with Costa, unless he’s going to be running away.”
Costa recently shook up the light heavyweight rankings at UFC 327 after moving up from middleweight. The one-time title challenger scored a stunning third-round knockout over top 10 contender Azamat Murzakanov and has made it clear his goal now is to eventually capture gold at 205 pounds.
During Saturday’s UFC Abu Dhabi broadcast, it was officially announced that the promotion is set to return to the city on Oct. 24 for UFC 333, which could be an ideal card for Ankalaev and Costa to settle their business.
“Obviously, if Paulo Costa wants to do it, if the UFC is saying that that’s a possibility, I would happily be the one to fight here in Abu Dhabi in October,” Ankalaev said. “I always want to show exciting fights, I always want to show fun fights for the fans, but it seems as though a lot of the people when they see me in front of them, they start to run away and I have to be the one trying to find them and hunt them.
“Sometimes the fight doesn’t turn out the way I want, so if Paulo Costa is going to stand in front of me and wants to stand and bang, we can definitely bang it out here in Abu Dhabi.”
Should Ankalaev vs. Costa be booked, expect the former light heavyweight champion to focus his full attention on the matchup with the hopes of staying in contention for a title fight, whether it be against injured champion Carlos Ulberg or a different opponent for a vacant championship.
And he hasn’t forgotten about wanting to book a trilogy against Alex Pereira either. Their UFC light heavyweight championship series is knotted at 1-1 and Ankalaev is ready tilt it in his favor if Pereira drops back down after a failed bid to win an interim heavyweight title at UFC White House.
“One more thing I’d like to say before I forget,” Pereira said. “There is somebody there that calls himself ‘Chama’ that put a picture of me up and said something like, ‘What? Are you still alive?’ Well, if he wants to come down here and if he wants to take on this fight, I’m sure the UFC would also be very happy to make that fight happen.”
