The Million Dollar Man! Paulo Costa becomes ‘highest paid Brazilian’ in UFC

It took a minute, but Paulo Costa is finally getting paid what he feels he’s worth in Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC).

“Borrachinha” hasn’t fought since a bloody face-to-face win over Luke Rockhold in Aug. 2022, and for awhile it looked like he’d be joining Nate Diaz and Francis Ngannou in free agency. According to Costa, UFC simply wasn’t paying him enough, and he was ready to walk away from the promotion if the two parties couldn’t come to an agreement.

Fortunately for fans of the popular Middleweight, his manager and girlfriend, Tamara Alves, was able to strike a lucrative deal with UFC that she says will make Costa the highest-paid Brazilian in the company.

“[Paulo] went from being one of the most undervalued athletes to one of the most valued athletes within the UFC,” Alves said in an interview with Ag.Fight. “I have no doubt that today Paulo is the highest paid Brazilian athlete within the organization. I don’t know if you know any Brazilian athlete who earns more than $1 million per fight.”

While the contract wasn’t signed at the time of the interview, UFC is already looking forward to getting Costa back in the cage. According to “Borrachinha,” there’s been talk of having him face Sean Strickland, but the promotion really wants him to fight Khamzat Chimaev in Abu Dhabi.

In a perfect world, Costa is hoping to fight them both back-to-back.

“I want that, too,” he said. “[The UFC] wants to make sure this Chimaev fight happen at all costs, but I want to make both happen. We’ll see.”

The promotion’s annual Abu Dhabi event goes down at UFC 294 on Oct. 21, 2023, inside Etihad Arena. Not only is UFC banking on Khamzat playing a big part in the event, it has also informed its Lightweight champion, Islam Makhachev, he won’t be fighting again until then as well.

Hopefully, Costa also doesn’t join the growing list of top fighters placed on semi-involuntary vacation.