Preview: UFC 298 ‘Volkanovski vs. Topuria’

Middleweights
Robert Whittaker (24-7) vs. Paulo Costa (14-2)
Odds: Whittaker (-225), Costa (+185)

Hopefully the third time is the charm for this booking between two former title contenders looking to re-establish their contender bonafides. Robert Whittaker has still established himself as an all-time great fighter, but it's interesting to think how he'd be talked about in a world where Israel Adesanya didn't exist, as he was clearly the second-best middleweight in the UFC up until the middle of last year. "The Reaper" had a middling career as a welterweight before moving up to 185 pounds in 2014, at which point it became immediately apparent that he would be a problem; the move up unlocked a new level of cardio and speed as a striker, turning him into a crafty knockout threat ready to charge his way up the division. A 2016 win over Derek Brunson established Whittaker as a contender, and his subsequent win over "Jacare" Souza - where Whittaker got to show off his highly-improved wrestling and grappling chops - made it clear that he was among the best middleweights in the world; with a victory over Yoel Romero to claim an interim belt, Whittaker seemed poised to be both the future of the division and the UFC's promotional efforts in his native Australia. Instead, the next two years seemed to be cursed for Whittaker. He never got his big potential title unification bout against either Michael Bisping or Georges St-Pierre - St-Pierre won the belt and then retired - or his huge homecoming as champion on Australian soil, thanks to major injuries ahead of potential title defenses against Luke Rockhold and Kelvin Gastelum. Once Whittaker finally got to fight in Australia, it was a title defense against Adesanya which really felt more like Adesanya's moment; he was now the electric talent rising up the divisional ranks, and he capped that rise with a second-round knockout of Whittaker in a fairly one-sided performance. Whittaker thankfully found a way to both rebound and retool, continuing to establish himself as one of the most offensively diverse forces in the division, but Adesanya proved to be the unconquerable final hurdle once again after Whittaker won his way back to a rematch. Still, Whittaker seemed set to earn a trilogy fight thanks to the gap between him and the rest of Adesanya's potential challengers, but Dricus Du Plessis upset those plans last July; the South African made Whittaker look every bit the former welterweight, bullying and overpowering him to a stunning degree en route to a second-round stoppage. With du Plessis now middleweight champ, Whittaker's path back to the title is as muddied as ever, so there's few options left except for the former champ to just keep winning and hope things shake out in his favor; the first step is this fight against Costa.

In terms of Costa's career, it's worth taking a trip back to 2019, when "The Eraser" looked to be the next big challenge for Adesanya's middleweight title reign. The Brazilian had an unmemorable stint on TUF in 2014 but came back to the UFC three years later as a completely different fighter, bulked beyond belief and having reinvented himself as a bullying power puncher. From there, Costa's rise was notable for just how clean it was; he marched through the competition without much issue and locked up a title shot with a decision win over Romero, fighting behind the unthinkable gameplan of marching Romero down and winning a straight-up firefight. And that was the last time that Costa's career seemed relatively normal; Costa's only fought three times in the ensuing four and a half years, and each of those fights has turned into some level of circus for various reasons. First came his title shot against Adesanya, which came with a rivalry between the two that seems best described as psychosexual; and whatever the cause, Costa seemingly came into the fight completely broken, showing little before getting knocked out in the second round. Costa publicly blamed the loss on a wine hangover, then returned a year later for a fight with Marvin Vettori that seemed to constantly be in jeopardy from the moment that it was announced; it's unclear if Costa even attempted to cut weight for the fight, but he was able to get the weight limit raised throughout the proceedings, eventually landing at the light heavyweight limit of 205 pounds. At the very least, that was a much better performance for Costa in a loss; it took him a while to get going, but he showed off his signature toughness and maintained his punching power even while fighting through exhaustion for most of the 25 minutes. That led to another long layoff, with Costa returning a year later to take on Luke Rockhold in what wound up as a messy display of defiant machismo; Costa seemingly had all the tools to quickly dispatch of a late-career version of Rockhold, but the former champ persisted and dragged Costa into an ugly fight that wound up much more dramatic than it needed to be. Costa turned up in much better shape that time around, and assuming he does so once again here, there's certainly the potential for him to cause a ton of problems for Whittaker; he's still large, he's still durable and he can still hit like a truck. But it's now been over four years since Costa applied those tools to anywhere near their maximum effectiveness, and Whittaker's made a career out of picking apart opponents too slow to keep up; the pick is Whittaker via decision.

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Volkanovski vs. Topuria
Whittaker vs. Costa
Neal vs. Garry
Dvalishvili vs. Cejudo
Hernandez vs. Kopylov
The Prelims