Dana White slams Paulo Costa for activity during injury - reveals next step for him

Paulo Costa was supposed to take on Israel Adesanya for the UFC Middleweight Championship in early 2020. Chances are that UFC 248 would have originally been headlined by that fight.

However, it was revealed soon after UFC 243 that Paulo Costa has a bicep injury that will keep him out for 8-9 months - meaning that he's expected to return in the midway point of this year.

Dana White was asked about the status of Paulo Costa and the UFC President slammed the Brazilian for being active and training during his time off injured. (H/T MMAFighting)

“Costa is in this big rush,” White said. “We’re watching his Instagram the other day, and the guy is working out like he’s training for a fight right now. You shouldn’t be doing that when you just got done with surgery, and they are saying now you’ll be ready for June.

He went further and said that if he trains like that, he'll re-injure himself. He advised Costa to wait it out and guaranteed that he'll get the title shot after June.

“He shouldn’t be training like that. You know what happens when you do that? You get hurt again. He needs to pump the brakes and slow down, make sure he’s 100 percent and doesn’t get hurt again, and then we can do that fight after Romero.”

White is right in advising Costa to take it slow. Adesanya even took a shot at Costa on social media, asking how it's possible to recover from a 9-month injury in just four months - laughing before cutting off the video.

If Costa wants to play his cards right, he'll let himself recover from surgery and come back at the midway point this year. He'll surely be fit enough to begin slow training in a few months - which should be enough time to start preparing himself for a title shot that he's virtually guaranteed to get.

If Adesanya beats Romero, he may not take too long to make a turnaround. However, whoever has faced Romero in the last few years, has ended up taking a long time off due to various injuries sustained.