Watch: Israel Adesanya and Paula Costa Share a Subtle Moment Before UFC 253

The protagonists of the UFC 253 headliner fight, Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa met outside the ring, and shared a subtle moment.

A week before their highly anticipated clash, Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa came across each other at Fight Island. While in the backdrop of UFC 253, so much steam is behind this fixture, since the stakes are high as it is for the middleweight title, and moreover on the night someone will suffer his first loss. The two have even engaged in virtual verbal spats in the leading up, therefore apparently a meeting before September 26, might have caused an altercation, or even a physical scuffle. However, what actually took place, came out as a huge surprise.

Also read: UFC 253: Israel Adesanya and Paulo Costa Tease Each Other With Slanderous Remarks

Israel Adesanya and Paula Costa Share a Subtle Moment Before UFC 253

Israel Adesanya, who is 19-0 in MMA, and is the current UFC Middleweight champion, will face the No.2 in the division, Paulo Costa, who himself has quite an impressive 13-0 record to his name. So, when fighters of this stature who are also set to throw punches at each other in a week’s time meet, one may expect that attempts will be made from both sides to gain a psychological advantage, but in this case, both Adesanya and Costa seemingly exhibited mutual respect for each other.

The striker duo stopped for a brisk talk, where Adesanya told Costa, he looked skinny, and in return Costa gave a satirical answer, that he was lean and never skinny. Besides this, the champion even gave the challenger a pat on the shoulder.

The meeting was captured on a camera.

 

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Adesanya told Costa he looked “skinny,” while Costa argued he was “lean, never skinny.” (via @wallidjfc)

A post shared by ESPN MMA (@espnmma) on Sep 20, 2020 at 8:41am PDT

Now, does this brief moment, hampers all the build-up, which gave the impression that the fighters could not stand each other, is anybody’s guess. But taking into consideration, what’s on the line, and how the match-up is expected to become a potential fight of the year candidate, it becomes certain that in the ring both will lock horns and neither Adesanya nor Costa will give nothing away at the marquee event, UFC 253.

1️⃣0️⃣ days!@Stylebender vs @BorrachinhaMMA is almost here 🏆

[ #UFC253 – Sep 26 – LIVE on #ESPNPlus PPV ] pic.twitter.com/NFJtTp2NJA

— UFC (@ufc) September 16, 2020

 

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