Yoel Romero heard Paulo Costa being flagged by USADA was reason for fight falling out
The middleweight division in MMA is one that is always providing some sort of intrigue and the reasons for why are seemingly limitless.
One of the recently proposed match-ups over the last few months has been one that pits divisional powerhouses Yoel Romero and Paulo Costa against one another. However, the fight has fallen through on two separate occasions now.
The first time was prior to November 2018 when the fight was hoping to be booked for UFC 230. The UFC prematurely announced the bout as official but Romero wasn’t cleared to compete due to a broken orbital bone from his previous encounter with the champion, Robert Whittaker at UFC 225.
Costa wouldn’t end up fighting anyone at UFC 230 despite this.
With an upcoming event in Sunrise, Florida, the UFC was hoping to make the match-up the event’s headliner but instead, it would be revealed last week that we’ll be seeing Romero rematch with Jacare Souza on April 27.
On Monday, Romero was asked what happened with the potential Costa about and he wound up potentially providing us with some breaking news.
“What I can hear is Paulo Costa, he
Since their introduction into the UFC, USADA has changed their flagging policy to where if an athlete is flagged that the results will stay hidden from the public until proper results can be determined to avoid from any wrongful speculation or unnecessary reputation damage in the case of innocence. Because as we know, tainted supplements are far too common of results for positive testings.
Ariel Helwani would share the following after speaking with Romero.
Re: the Paulo Costa story, Yoel Romero called me immediately after the show to clarify that he had only heard that Paulo Costa failed a USADA drug test but he is not sure if that is accurate at this time. He said he would never want to accuse anyone before the facts come out.
— Ariel Helwani (@arielhelwani) March 11, 2019
“Re: the Paulo Costa story, Yoel Romero called me immediately after the show to clarify that he had only heard that Paulo Costa failed a USADA drug test but he is not sure if that is accurate at this time. He said he would never want to accuse anyone before the facts come out.”
This article first appeared on BJPenn.com on 3/11/2019
Topics:
UFC Yoel Romero
