Paulo Costa got past Yoel Romero at UFC 241 but it was not easy. He was dropped once and had to take the Cuban’s hardest punches and his pressure.
Yet, during the fight, Paulo Costa was not happy with Romero. He says he was using dirty tactics like pointing to the ground where the Brazilian thought his mouthguard was out so he stopped for a second.
“He’s a nice guy, but he’s dirty,” Costa said on Ariel Helwani’s MMA Show (h/t MMA Junkie). “In the first round, when I make a hook in his face, he went down then got up very quickly. I say man I will knock him out in the first round because he feel my punch, my first punch, and I started hunting him in the octagon. And when I close to knock him out, he point on something, anywhere, I don’t know. Like look there Paulo, and I lose concentration, because he point something, maybe his mouthpiece fall.
“And I’m not a dirty guy. I try to fight clean and when he point something, like maybe a mouth piece down. I think man, maybe something happened. So I lose my concentration, and he punched my face. But he missed my face and hit my neck, and I lose my balance, and I fall, so this is one thing.”
Not only that but when Costa hit Romero in the groin he says it hit him in the stomach. And, the Cuban just wanted a break so he acted as it hit him low.
“The second thing, my knee not hit his balls,” Costa said. “My knee hit his stomach, and he said, ‘Oh, you hit my balls,’ and he jumped back, and the referee (said) stop, stop. I don’t know him deep, but he’s a nice guy, he looks like a nice guy, but his kind of fight is not clean.”
Regardless, Paulo Costa is just happy he got the win over Yoel Romero.
