Reinier de Ridder just secured the biggest win of his UFC career, but not everyone was impressed. After outpointing former middleweight champion Robert Whittaker in the main event of UFC Abu Dhabi, “RDR” found himself on the receiving end of some online trolling from Paulo Costa.
De Ridder went the distance in a hard-fought, back-and-forth contest against Whittaker, ultimately earning a split-decision victory with two judges scoring it 48-47 in his favor. The performance pushed his UFC record to 4-0 and immediately raised his stock in the middleweight division. But as the dust settled, Costa jumped on X (formerly Twitter) to criticize the bout.
“With all due respect, I would knock out de Ridder three times each round,” Costa wrote. “All that said congrats for your win today, despite bad fight.”
Costa, who hasn’t secured a knockout since 2018, also shared a meme mocking the Dutch grappler and labeled the fight as boring. But if he was trying to get under de Ridder’s skin, it didn’t work.
“There’s always a hater out there,” de Ridder responded with a smirk during the UFC Abu Dhabi post-fight press conference. “Did Paulo Costa never fight Whittaker? What happened?”
De Ridder, who took the high road while still throwing subtle jabs, made it clear that he wasn’t fazed by the former title challenger. Costa had previously suffered a unanimous decision loss to Whittaker back in 2024, and RDR didn’t hesitate to bring that up.
As for how de Ridder saw the fight, he believes he did more than enough to get the win, even though one judge’s scorecard left him puzzled.
“I’ve got to watch this back. At least the last two rounds, right? Maybe the second as well,” de Ridder said. “I got on top a couple of times. I hurt him a couple of times with the knee but this guy is a tough guy. He was hard to put away. He did amazing. I think I said it a couple of times already but one of the best Rob’s I’ve seen in years. He was so calm, collected, very explosive. It was hard work this time.”
“I was surprised one judge scored it completely wrong. I thought I had three rounds at least. But it is what it is. I hoped to finish him, and I didn’t so you never know what the judges make of it. I’ll be sure to finish the next guy again.”
The middleweight landscape is heating up. At UFC 319, reigning champion Dricus du Plessis is scheduled to defend his belt against Khamzat Chimaev. Meanwhile, Nassourdine Imavov will headline UFC Paris against Caio Borralho just weeks later. De Ridder knows what’s coming and he’s ready to throw his name into the title mix.
“We’ll see what happens,” de Ridder said. “There’s a lot going on in the middleweight division in the next couple of weeks. As you said, I’m a top five fighter in the world. That’s crazy. Who can say that? In one year and I think I have a good chance fighting for a title someday soon. We’ll see.”
“Hopefully [I’ll fight for the title], we’ll see what happens. There’s a lot of stuff going on in the middleweight division coming up in the next few months. I’m a top five fighter in the world. I want to prove that I’m the best. I want to get back in the gym, work on all the stuff that happened in this fight. But first, I need some relaxation for a couple of weeks I think.”
After UFC Abu Dhabi, Reinier de Ridder sits in a prime position for a title shot. While the trolling from Costa grabbed a few headlines, it’s clear de Ridder has bigger goals in mind and he’s already looking ahead to whoever holds the gold next.
