UFC’s Melquizael Costa confident he will ‘steal the show’ going head-to-head with Rousey vs. Carano event

Melquizael Costa’s first time headlining a UFC event comes in a busy night for the sport on May 16. The UFC has gone head-to-head with promotions like PFL and Bellator in recent years, but MVP’s first MMA show on Netflix gives Costa and his opponent, Arnold Allen, competition like no other.

MVP MMA will be headlined Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano and the main card also includes stars like Nate Diaz, Mike Perry and Francis Ngannou. The UFC Vegas 117 line-up has Allen vs. Costa on top, preceded by Doo Ho Choi vs. Daniel Santos in the co-main event slot. The only ranked fighters on the UFC card are Ketlen Vieira and Jacqueline Cavalcanti, who face off in the prelims.

“It’s going to be at the APEX, but it’ll still be the main event,” Costa told MMA Fighting. “There won’t be ads during my walkout music. I was pissed off about that last time [laughs]. The show will be ready for me. The only thing is I’ll be competing with the people over at Netflix. If it was the Ronda from years ago, okay. But it’s today’s Ronda, so I’m good with it. I trust my skills [laughs].”

Costa expects fans to have “plenty of time” to watch his fights on Paramount+ before MVP MMA’s top stars walk out to the hexagon. If his fights coincides with one of them, though, Costa believes his style is more exciting than potential “boring” bouts over on Netflix.

“If you asked me whether I’d rather open [the UFC 328] main card or headline this event, I’d still choose to headline this one because it’s my first time on a poster,” Costa said. “I don’t care if Canelo Alvarez is fighting the same night, I’m not even paying attention to that. Doesn’t matter, man. I’m still going to steal the show. I trust the way I fight, people are going to enjoy it. And besides, there’ll probably be a lot of boring fights on Netflix. People will say, ‘Melk is fighting, leave it on this instead.’”

“Have you ever seen anything come easy for me, brother? It always comes with some kind of challenge,” he continued. “Like, ‘You’re going to headline the card but you’ll have to compete with Ronda.’ Alright then, deal. She fights for attention over there, I fight for attention over here [laughs].”

Costa predicted back in February he would fight three times in 2026 “and the last one will already be for the belt.” He maintains that, confident that beating Allen could put him straight in a title fight next. Costa expects UFC featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski to “run through” Movsar Evloev and immediately retire, leaving the path open with a vacant belt.