Paulo Costa & Manager Respond to Claim UFC Middleweight May Have Failed Drug Test

Recently Yoel Romero claimed he had heard a failed drug test could be why Paulo Costa’s no longer fighting him on April 27th, and now the latter and his manager have responded.

Costa was expected to face Romero at the upcoming event, but recently it was announced that “Jacare” Souza will instead. The powerful wrestler told ESPN’s Ariel Helwani he had heard Costa had tested positive for banned substances, but that he wasn’t sure if that was true.

Well, since then, Costa told MMA Fighting that he has not failed a drug test, and the fighter’s manager, Wallid Ismail, was quoted saying this:

“It’s not true, there was no doping, he wasn’t caught doing [anything],” Ismail said. “That’s a lie. A big lie.”

So, it will be interesting to see what is the reason for why Costa’s no longer inline to fight Romero. As this is being written, the cause for the undefeated fighter’s unavailability is not known.