UFC 298 Odds, Prediction: Robert Whittaker vs. Paulo Costa

Payton Matthews
February 13, 2024

Whittaker is a -225 favourite to win on the MMA odds and Costa is a +185 underdog.

Robert Whittaker UFC 298 Odds

Dricus Du Plessis is the UFC middleweight champion, and the 33-year-old Whittaker, who was born in New Zealand but lives in Australia, is ranked third in the division with a career record of 24-7 dating to 2009.

“The Reaper” won the UFC middleweight title with a unanimous decision win over Yoel Romero at UFC 213 and then successfully defended against Romero at UFC 225 with a split-decision win. However, he lost the belt at UFC 243 to Israel Adesanya. Whittaker then won his next three to get another title shot and rematch with Adesanya (ranked No. 2 in the division currently) but lost that by unanimous decision.

Whittaker is 1-1 since, beating Marvin Vettori by unanimous decision in September 2022 and then losing as a betting favourite against Du Plessis by second-round TKO (punches) in July 2023 in a one-sided fight – Du Plessis wasn’t the champion then. Had Whittaker won, he would have gotten another title shot and third fight with Adesanya.

“That was a night that I didn’t turn up to fight, and that doesn’t sit well with me,” Whittaker said after the Du Plessis loss. “Everything in hindsight is easy to point fingers at. I just know, personally, that night when I got in there, I just wasn’t thinking about the fight. And I don’t want to get over it, because I’m using that as fuel. I’ve been just locking myself in the gym, training myself to be better, to just take it to that next level. I don’t want to have this sort of end career. I do believe the best of me hasn’t yet come out, and yeah, I’m using it as fuel. I don’t want to forget it.”

The 6-foot Whittaker has a reach of 73 inches and his bouts average 14:04. He lands 4.47 significant strikes per minute with 42 per cent accuracy and absorbs 3.39 with 60 per cent defence. His takedown average is 0.85 per 15 minutes with 39 per cent accuracy, and his takedown defence is 82 per cent.

Whittaker has 10 wins by decision, nine by KO/TKO and five by submission with three losses each by decision and KO/TKO and one by submission. His favoured method of victory Saturday is by decision at +130, followed by KO/TKO/DQ at +300 and submission at +1100. A draw is +5000.

Paulo Costa UFC 298 Odds

The 32-year-old Costa, from Brazil, is ranked No. 6 in the middleweight division and is 14-2 in a career dating to 2012. He was previously scheduled to fight Whittaker in both April 2021 and February 2023, but something came up each time.

“Borrachinha” suffered his first career loss against Adesanya in a title bout at UFC 253 in September 2020 by second-round TKO (punches and elbows). In the aftermath of the loss, Costa said on his YouTube channel that he consumed a bottle of wine the night before the fight in an effort to fall asleep and it led to the worst outing of his career.

“My weight cut was very hard, but it’s always hard,” Costa said. “The problem is that in Abu Dhabi, the fight happens in the morning, not at night. So, you get one night more [of recovery]. And what happened is, after my weight cut, I had recovered very well. But then I trained so hard. I was so confident, that I trained hard. I trained more than is recommended after a weight cut. And I think this made a lot of problems in my body. I had a lot of cramps and I had a lot of problems trying to sleep.”

Costa was better the next time out in October 2021 but still lost via unanimous decision to Vettori. Costa ended that two-fight skid last time in the Octagon in 2022 with a unanimous decision win over Luke Rockhold. Costa hasn’t fought since action due to contract negotiations followed by a serious staph infection that forced him to withdraw from his scheduled bout against Khamzat Chimaev at UFC 294.

The 6-foot-1 Costa has a reach of 72 inches and his fights average 10:40. He lands 6.50 significant strikes per minute with 60 per cent accuracy and absorbs 6.38 with 47 per cent defence. His takedown average is 0.53 per 15 minutes with 75 per cent accuracy, and his takedown defence is 79 per cent.

Costa has 11 wins by KO/TKO, two by decision and one by submission. For Saturday, his favoured method of victory is by KO/TKO/DQ at +300, followed by decision at +500 and submission at +1800. The over-under for the scheduled three-round bout is 2.5. That it goes the distance is -125 with no at -105.