Paulo Costa Says He Is Signing With Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Agency
Paulo Costa said he is signing with Eddie Hearn’s Matchroom Talent Agency, becoming the third UFC fighter to join the boxing promoter’s management group after Tom Aspinall and Ian Machado Garry. The move matters because Costa is on the last fight of his UFC contract, the promotion has already refused to release him, and he wants Hearn handling the business side of what comes next.
Costa said Hearn has already sent paperwork. “He already sent us a contract. I’m so excited, we’re gonna do great things together.”
He described the deal as more than a commercial add-on. Hearn, in Costa’s words, would represent and manage him, “the whole thing,” after a meeting Costa called a good one with a guy he respects as a professional.
This is not a jump to boxing and it is not an immediate UFC exit. Matchroom Talent Agency manages fighters. It does not replace the UFC as Costa’s promotion while he still owes a bout.
That is the tension. Costa asked to be released after the UFC passed on putting him in an interim light heavyweight title fight at UFC 332. He said matchmakers told him no, that he has to do one more fight first.
Hearn already has two UFC names. Aspinall, the heavyweight champion, signed in March and has been out since an eye injury against Ciryl Gane. Garry signed in June and then lost a welterweight title fight to Islam Makhachev by unanimous decision at UFC 330 on Aug. 15.
Costa is 16-4 and ranked No. 6 at 205 pounds. His last fight was a third-round head-kick knockout of Azamat Murzakanov at UFC 327 in April. He has been public about wanting bigger names, more money for five-round fights, or a belt, and he has said he will take a three-rounder to finish the contract if that is all the UFC will give him.
Hearn’s arrival is Costa’s answer to that stall. The Brazilian has said the balance of power is off and that fighters need people who will push for them. Hearn has spent 2026 collecting UFC talent while in a public feud with Dana White after Zuffa Boxing signed Conor Benn.
Costa still has to get through the UFC once more. The company has not announced an opponent. Costa said he expects a three-round offer and a name, then free agency.
That is where Hearn’s role gets real. If Costa fights and leaves, Matchroom would be the shop negotiating the next chapter, whether that is a new UFC deal or something outside the Octagon. If Costa stays for one more, Hearn would be the voice in those talks.
Costa is not claiming the UFC is finished with him. He is claiming he needed a representative who treats the last fight as leverage, not a holding pattern.
Aspinall and Garry showed Hearn will work with fighters who remain under UFC contracts. Costa is the first of the three who is this close to the door. The contract he says is already in his hands is the start of that process, not the end of his UFC run.