Former UFC light heavyweight title challenger Anthony Johnson has issued a scathing response to recent middleweight title challenger Paulo Costa.
Costa (13-1 MMA) put his undefeated mixed martial arts record on the line while hoping to dethrone middleweight champion Israel Adesanya (20-0 MMA) at last months UFC 253 pay-per-view event on Fight Island.
The highly anticipated contest did not result in the “fight of the year” many were expecting to see. Instead, ‘Stylebender’ handled ‘The Eraser’ with relative ease, scoring a second round TKO victory.
Former UFC title challenger Anthony Johnson was not surprised that Adesanya seemingly had his way with Costa at UFC 253. However, ‘Rumble’ was rather shocked by how ‘The Eraser’ handled his first career defeat.
“Hey, being skinny has its advantages, dude. I don’t understand all of a sudden either why Costa is getting so upset after he saw what ‘Stylebender’ did to him, you know? I was like ‘Dude, you were the one talking so much and then he gets you at the end and now you mad? Because he embarrassed you? Come on man, grow some balls. Man up to that.’ It is what it is. You can’t demand a rematch either after a performance like that either. That’s not smart. That’s not gonna sell for sure.”
Earlier this evening, Paulo Costa fired back at Anthony Johnson for those remarks. The Brazilian bomber issued the following statement on Twitter.
“Anthony Rumble Johnson shut up moron you even don’t know which weight class you should fight.”
It did not take long for Costa to draw a response from Johnson. ‘Rumble’ took to social media where he advised ‘The Eraser’ to “know your role”.
https://twitter.com/Anthony_Rumble/status/1316556622798434307
“I don’t do the talking back and forth but the last BBC you did that to fucked your ass at the end DOGGY STYLE. Now your name is LOOSE BOOTY You must want missionary next by me? I respect you but make sure you know your role… I’m not the 1 kid.”
Anthony Johnson has not fought since April of 2017, when he was submitted in his second attempt at swiping the UFC light heavyweight title from Daniel Cormier. Despite his lengthy hiatus, he does not seem to have lost a step in training.
This article first appeared on BJPENN.com on October 14, 2020