Paulo Costa Defeats Roman Kopylov by Decision at UFC 318 for 1st Win Since 2022

Paulo Costa got back into the win column at UFC 318 with a unanimous decision win over Roman Kopylov in the co-main event in New Orleans on Saturday night.

Costa talked about restoring his aggressive style ahead of this fight, and that was clear in the opening round. The Eraser looked sharp and even put Kopylov on the floor with a clean right hand in the final minute of the round. 

The Brazilian took that success into the second round. He continued to be the more effective striker. He looked much more like the younger version of Costa who was a championship contender as he pieced up a passive Kopylov.

The third round saw Costa gas a bit, but he was still able to continue his vintage performance. he landed more than twice as many strikes as his opponent and did so with incredibly efficiency over the three-round bout.

Kenny Florian was among those who were happy to see Costa put together a solid performance after a string of disappointing ones.

It's probably a career-saving move for Costa.

The Brazilian has struggled to get any momentum going since a 13-0 start to his career was brought to a halt by Israel Adesanya. Costa was 1-4 in his last five fights with losses to Marvin Vettori, Robert Whittaker and Strickland after losing his title shot to The Last Stylebender.

Costa had a win over Luke Rockhold in there, but this gives him a win over someone with real momentum. Kopylov had won six of his last seven bouts, including a head-kick TKO over Chris Curtis in January.

On paper, this was the bout that was supposed to launch the Russian into the top 10 of the division.

Instead, Costa looks like he might finally get things back on track. Now he's looking to prove he can fight someone with whom he has a rivalry and come out on top. He called out Khamzat Chimaev ahead of his UFC 318 appearance.

"I want to fight him very badly," Costa said at the UFC 318 media day. "I want to hurt him. It doesn't matter if he won the fight or not; it doesn't matter. We need to fight. He talked very bad things about me to my girl on Instagram DM's. This is totally personal."

Things got heated between Adesanya and Costa ahead of their title fight. Adesanya got under Costa's skin and even taunted him during their bout. Costa has rarely displayed the same aggression and skills since then.

Calling out Chimaev might be a bit optimistic. Costa wasn't even in the top 10 of the UFC rankings ahead of this bout, and Chimaev is set to take on Dricus Du Plessis for the middleweight title next month.

But the bad blood could make it a marketable fight and if Chimaev comes up short then you have intrigue with Costa trying to prove that he can still be an elite middleweight contender and Chimaev bouncing back from a loss.