UFC News: Yoel Romero accused of using dirty tactics
How can one not be hyped for a fight between two genetically freakish yet superior athletes such as Yoel Romero and Paulo Costa?
Given that similarly anticipated bouts have tanked in the past, the towering Middleweights brought the goods when it mattered and delivered the fight of the night at UFC 241.
It was three rounds and fifteen minutes of wild and laborious action. In the end, Costa managed to get a controversial unanimous decision victory over Romero.
Costa was a guest on Ariel Helwani's MMA Show and the Brazillian spoke about his 3-round war against Romero and blamed the Cuban for using dirty tactics during the fight. While he admitted that Romero is a nice guy, he was critical of the former Olympian's apparent usage of sly schemes and manoeuvres.
“He’s a nice guy, but he’s dirty. In the first round, when I make a hook in his face, he went down then got up very quickly, and 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 in to knock him out, he point out 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 mouthpiece 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.”
There was another disputable moment that Costa brought up, claiming that he never hit Romero in the groin during the fight. It should be noted that the referee had to briefly stop the fight, which gave both fighters some time to recover. However, Costa thinks it could have all been avoided.
“The second thing, my knee not hit his ba**s. My knee hit his stomach, and he said, ‘Oh, you hit my ba**s,’ 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.”
Costa stated that he was really pleased with his performance as he considered Romero to be a 'real beast'. He added that the world now knows that he has the tools to become a world champion and said that he will be in attendance for the highly-awaited UFC 243 Middleweight title fight between Robert Whittaker and Israel Adesanya.
In case you're wondering, Costa - who is now ranked second in the division after his win against Romero - picked The Reaper to beat Stylebender.