Alex Pereira blasts Paulo Costa after he mocked his training ahead of UFC return: ‘I became champion’
Ahead of his Octagon return at UFC 291 later this month, Alex Pereira appears to have taken umbrage with his compatriot, Paulo Costa, after the latter mocked footage of him training alongside the outspoken, Dillon Danis this week.
Pereira, the current number one ranked middleweight contender and former division champion, is slated to make his light heavyweight divisional move at UFC 291 at the end of this month, taking on Polish veteran, Jan Blachowicz in Salt Lake City, Utah.
The Sao Paulo native will share that high-profile pay-per-view card alongside his Brazilian counterpart, Costa, with the one-time middleweight title challenger taking on the highly-touted prospect, Ikram Aliskerov.
And ahead of his divisional move, footage has emerged of Alex Pereira training alongside Bellator MMA welterweight and decorated Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu practitioner, Danis – leading to a rather mocking and candid response from Belo Horizonte native, Costa.
“Jesus its (sic) not looks (sic) good,” Paulo Costa tweeted.
In reply to his compatriot, Alex Pereira, a former two-weight champion under the banner of GLORY Kickboxing, tweeted, “With this kind of training I became champion.”
Both Alex Pereira and Paulo Costa have shared the Octagon with Israel Adesanya
Both facing Israel Adesanya during their Octagon tenures, Pereira snatched middleweight gold from the City Kickboxing staple back in November of last year with a rallying final round standing TKO win, before dropping the crown in an immediate rematch last April – courtesy of a thunderous second round KO loss.
Himself facing Adesanya during his first title reign back in October 2020, Costa suffered a one-sided second round TKO loss to the Nigerian-Kiwi in Abu Dhabi, UAE.
With Pereira and Costa featuring at UFC 291 later this month, the Brazilian duo will take stage before a mouth-watering lightweight rematch between former interim division champions, Dustin Poirier, and Justin Gaethje – with the pair competing for the returning symbolic BMF championship to boot.
