Marvin Vettori and Paulo Costa have now agreed to a catchweight fight ahead of their showdown in the UFC Vegas 41 main event.
On Thursday, UFC officials confirmed to MMA Fighting the Saturday headliner will now take place at 195 pounds with Costa surrendering 20 percent of his purse to Vettori to re-book the fight.
News of the change was first reported by Yahoo! Sports.
The fight was initially contracted at middleweight, but Costa arrived on fight week well over the 186-pound limit required for a non-title bout. Costa said during UFC Vegas 41 media day that he weighed around 211 pounds and there was no way he could cut down to the middleweight limit.
He then asked for concession from Vettori to make their fight a catchweight, or even bump up as high as 205 pounds in order to move forward.
“I think this fight will happen,” Costa said on Wednesday. “It just will not happen if he don’t want to fight me. Maybe we can do a catchweight 195 [pounds] maybe but I think make this fight [205 pounds] could be more exciting to the fans.
“More explosive fight cause I want to go bring the fight for him. Maybe he wants to bring the fight to me. I think with both guys heavy, this knockout can happen easily.”
For his part, Vettori had no intention of dropping out of the fight, but he also needed to know the targeted weight because he was already shedding pounds in order to compete at middleweight.
Late Wednesday night, Vettori’s manager Ali Abdelaziz told MMA Fighting that they had agreed to a catchweight, but they were still awaiting word from Costa and his team on a final decision for the fight to move ahead as scheduled.
Now, all sides have agreed to the 195-pound catchweight fight with Vettori receiving a portion of Costa’s purse as punishment.
Vettori and Costa will hit the scale on Friday morning from Las Vegas with the Nevada Athletic Commission overseeing the proceedings. If Costa fails to make the 195-pound limit, he could face additional fines or penalties from the commission.
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