Jared Cannonier explains why he turned down a fight against Paulo Costa at UFC 301

Jared Cannonier revealed he was offered a fight against Paulo Costa at UFC 301, but he had to turn the bout down.

Cannonier had been rehabbing an injury when he got the call to go down to Brazil and fight with Costa. Although that is a fight that does interest Cannonier, as it gets him closer to a title shot, he had to turn it down.

“Initially they offered me a fight with Paulo Costa, whenever they had this fight in Brazil last weekend (UFC 301). I wasn’t going to get cleared until the end of March, that would have been a one-month camp to get ready to get back into competition. I didn’t want to jump right back into competition without having been training everything I needed to be training leading up to get a fight scheduled, I wasn’t grappling as much. Of course, I wasn’t cleared to compete, so I didn’t have full utilization of my recovered knee,” Cannonier said to MiddleEasy.

The hope for Jared Cannonier was to get the fight against Paulo Costa pushed back, but unfortunately for him, the Brazilian is now facing Sean Strickland at UFC 302.

Cannonier, meanwhile, will headline UFC Louisville a week later on June 8 against Nassourdine Imavov. Although it isn’t the fight that Cannonier wanted, he is looking forward to getting back into the Octagon.

“It wasn’t what I wanted, naturally I want the contenders fight, the highest rankings the best matchup. I was hoping to get Costa later, maybe in June, but they gave that fight to (Strickland). That ship sailed, so all they had left was Imavov,” Cannonier said.

Should Cannonier get his hand raised against Imavov on June 8 he could be a win away from getting another crack at the title.

Jared Cannonier is currently ranked fourth at middleweight. He’s coming off back-to-back wins over Marvin Vettori and Sean Strickland.