During the UFC 278 weigh-ins on Friday, an irate Paulo Costa slammed USADA. According to him, one of its agents paid him an early morning visit to draw some of his blood as part of its testing procedure.
“The guy went on my bedroom 7am, I was cutting weight, to take my blood. “F–k USADA,” he said after successfully making weight. He then posted this follow-up tweet.
Fuck the the boss on Usada who sent their agents this morning at my sleep room 6 am to take my blood out!!! I was cutting weight very dehydrated and they wants took my blood ! Fuck those guys!!! I never been caught by usada test I don’t need this fuck shit pic.twitter.com/dtFJQ61ezW
— Paulo Costa ( Borrachinha ) (@BorrachinhaMMA) August 19, 2022
UFC president Dana White apparently apologized to “Borrachinha” right after the weigh-ins. And as he told the media during the post-fight presser, that would be the last of the agency’s early morning visits, especially while a fighter is trying to get some rest while cutting weight.
“I apologized to him on stage. That’ll never happen again to any fighter,” he told the media.
“They don’t know about fighting, the way that people know about fighting know about fighting. You don’t go in and test a guy at six in the morning when he’s cutting weight. The results are gonna be the same a few hours later. You wait.
“I apologized to him on stage when he came out, and that won’t happen to another fighter again.”
Costa ended up defeating Luke Rockhold via unanimous decision at the co-main event, which led to the latter’s retirement announcement right after.
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