Former Ultimate Fighting Championship beltholder
Robert
Whittaker is getting a local matchup for the first time in over
three years.
Frequently rumored and discussed across the MMA community, the UFC
officially confirmed
that Whittaker (24-6) will be squaring off against Paulo Costa
(14-2) at UFC 284.
The two 185ers will toe the line at the RAC Arena in Perth,
Australia, on Feb. 11. The promotion did state that the bout has
not yet been cleared by the Western Australia Combat Sports
Commission, but there do not appear to be any obstacles on paper
for it coming together. It is the first fight set for this
Australian event, which will be the UFC’s first journey to the
Commonwealth of Australia since October 2019 – an event in which
Whittaker headlined.
Whittaker bounced back from a close defeat to Israel
Adesanya by beating Marvin
Vettori on the scorecards in September. “Bobby Knuckles” moved
up to the middleweight division after beating Mike Rhodes
in 2014, and he rattled off eight straight wins including a pair of
championship battles against Yoel Romero
in 2017 and 2017. The New Zealand-born Aussie has only suffered
losses in the weight class to Adesanya, while ratting off victories
over the likes of Ronaldo
Souza, Jared
Cannonier, Derek
Brunson and Kelvin
Gastelum as he remained a perennial contender.
Brazil’s Costa too picked up a win in his last outing, outworking
Luke
Rockhold after three rounds in a wild and bloody scrap. Before
then, Costa had dropped two straight, starting with a championship
knockout loss to Adesanya and then losing a five-rounder to Vettori
the year after. “Borrachinha” introduced himself to the UFC roster
in 2017 by running roughshod over Gareth McLellan, and then went on
to wreck Oluwale
Bamgbose, Johny
Hendricks and Uriah Hall in
rapid succession. Although his 100% finish rate came to an end when
he could not knock out Romero, he punched his ticket to the title
shot with a spotless record of 13-0.