Dana White Claims Paulo Costa Is In No Position To Talk About Crazy Money, Believes He Did Sign To Fight Jared Cannonier

Mandatory Credit: Josh Hedges - Zuffa LLC

UFC president, Dana White has responded to recent tweets from middleweight contender, Paulo Costa, in which the Brazilian voiced his displeasure with the promotion's failure to pay him sufficiently as a main event fighter for an upcoming clash with Jared Cannonier -- claiming Costa did sign to fight the Texan, as well as questioning how he could ask for "crazy money" following his last Octagon performance.

On Saturday, reports emerged detailing how Costa had reportedly withdrawn from a planned August 21st. main event clash against the #4 ranked contender, Cannonier, with former interim title challenger, Kelvin Gastelum replacing the Belo Horizonte native for the second bout running -- after severe flu forced Costa from an April showdown against former undisputed champion, Robert Whittaker.

According to Costa, however, he claims he never officially signed a bout agreement to meet with Cannonier in August, and questioned why the promotion would announce the fight as if it was official. It is worth noting that the UFC never officially announced the fight, however. Costa also questioned how YouTubers like Jake and Logan Paul were making significantly larger purses than him for both professional and exhibition boxing matches, as well as prompting the UFC to pay him main event-worthy money. 

Appearing during a recent interview with TSN reporter, Aaron Bronsteter, White responded to claims from Costa that he hadn't, in fact, signed to fight Cannonier, and claimed the Brazilian should have made his own YouTube channel when he was 13-years-old if he wanted to earn that sort of purse from exhibition boxing matches.

"I don't think that's true, I think he did sign (to fight Cannonier) because we extended him -- we extended his contract, for turning down the fight," White said. "But, listen, don't fight. I have to offer you three fights a year, this is my situation with all these guys. I offer you three fights a year -- he doesn't have to fight, no problem, don't fight."

"Guess what, you (Paulo Costa) should have started a YouTube channel when you were f*cking 13-years-old and built your name up and everything else. You could have had the fight on Saturday (Sunday) night (Floyd Mayweather vs. Logan Paul) but you didn't, you're not a f*cking YouTuber, you're a fighter, and this is what you do for a living -- or you don't. It's up to you."

Costa, who most recently featured in a middleweight title fight against Israel Adesanya at UFC 253 in September of last year on 'Fight Island -- suffered a one-sided second round knockout loss. And according to White, his performance against the City Kickboxing standout doesn't warrant "crazy money". 

"You're (Costa) in no position to be talking about crazy money after your last performance, okay?" White continued. "So, you either want to fight or you don't want to fight. No problem, you don't wanna fight, you can hang out and do whatever you want. When you're ready, you let me know.