“There’s going to be some real musical chairs at 205 pounds” – Chael Sonnen says that Paulo Costa needs to move to the light heavyweight division to extend his career
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Chael Sonnen(L), Paulo Costa(R)
With Paulo Costa making his decision to continue fighting at the middleweight division, many believe it wouldn’t be right for the Brazilian to continue there and some think that he’s scared to move up to the 205-pound division.
However, Chael Sonnen the former UFC middleweight star who started out at the 205-pound division seems to believe that Costa could extend his career in the UFC by making a leap into the light heavyweight division by at least six years.
In his podcast ‘Beyond the Fight‘, he says, “Why not just go 205 pounds? So that is my concern with Paulo. I’m sitting over here. I don’t really have any standing in this matter, but I do have an opinion, I’m sharing it with you. I would like to see him extend his career, which I do believe could effectively be done. Two, three maybe as much as six years, just by going to 205 and not having to battle that scale [weigh in], to the extent that he’s battling it now.”
He also went on to say that the light heavyweight division had a lot of changes in champions recently while the pandemic took place which is true as Jon Jones vacated his position as champion and Jan Blachowicz beat Dominick Reyes to take on the mantle of a light heavyweight champion who was however defeated by Glover Teixeira at UFC 267.
“Just within the pandemic Jon Jones had the belt, gave it up. Jan comes in and grabs the strap, he passes it to Glover Teixeira who has a row of killers in front of him and I just think there’s going to be some real musical chairs. I think we’re going to continue to see some momentum and movement at 205 pounds. I think Paulo fits in very well there.”
Chael Sonnen asks Paulo Costa not to cannibalize his own muscle for the sake of fighting at middleweight
Chael Sonnen went on to say on his YouTube channel that Paulo Costa should avoid having to sacrifice and cannibalize his own body and muscle just so he can fight at the middleweight division of the UFC.
He says, “Rumour is he gets up to, close to 230 pounds. Now you’re talking about cannibalizing your own body. You’re talking about going and lifting weights to put on muscle knowing full well that you’re going to cannibalize and eat that muscle away to get down to the weight class right. It starts to be one of these weird philosophical games but why are we doing that? Why not just go 205 pounds?“
Sonnen also advises the Brazilian to rethink his decision as he knows that if he were to pursue the light heavyweight division, he could increase his career span to as much as six more years.
“I would like to see him extend his career, which I do believe could effectively be done. Two, three, maybe as much as six years just by going to 205 pounds and not having to battle that scale, to the extent he’s battling it now. It can literally put, literally, a half a decade on our career and maybe even more. Just that one thing. That one thing. That one stress that you take off of your body will get that body to hold up five, six, eight years more.”
Maybe Sonnen could be right. Paulo Costa has almost a rock-hard body and moving up a division could personally help not just his career but maybe his contention for a title shot.
We shall find out what awaits Borrachinha’s future.
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