Paulo Costa and Luke Rockhold will have to wait a little longer to settle their grudge.

MMA Fighting confirmed with sources with knowledge of the change that the middleweight contenders will “most likely” now fight at an Aug. 20 UFC event with a location still to be determined after originally being scheduled to fight at UFC 277 on July 30. The reason for the change is not yet known, but Rockhold (16-5) recently told The Schmo that Costa’s camp was attempting to delay the fight.

“Paulo Costa is pathetic and the kid needs to sign the contract and agree to the weight, agree to the fight, agree to the date, agree to the dance and [blows a kiss] let’s go,” Rockhold said, according to Bloody Elbow. “There’s always been questions. It was July 2. It was July 30 and now this b**** is trying to move it to f****** August. I’m sick [and] I’m tired of just f******… this s***. But I really want to beat that f*****’s ass, so we’re going to August it is.”

This will be Rockhold’s first fight since a knockout loss in a light heavyweight bout to Jan Blachowicz in July 2019. The former UFC and Strikeforce middleweight champion has lost three of his past four fights.

Costa (13-2) is coming off of consecutive losses to Marvin Vettori and Israel Adesanya. He won his first five UFC fights before falling to Adesanya at in a middleweight championship bout at UFC 253.

Damon Martin and Guilherme Cruz contributed to this report.



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