The recipe for beating Adesanya is clearly there - it’s to fight the Gastelum fight except better, which Costa is clearly capable of given his usual style. Instead, he attempted to be patient to preserve energy for a potential 5 rounds which simply resulted in Adesanya calmly beavering away at his leg, and when it was tenderized enough he he want for the predictable head shots. Ultimately, you have to put relentless pressure on Adesanya to beat him. He was knocked down multiple times vs Gastelum so we know it’s possible. Instead, Costa did the exact opposite and barely fought - which reminded me a bit of how Ngannou approached the Derek Lewis fight. Costa will be back imo and they will do it again, especially given how rubbish the rest of the division is.
Seen you make the Gastelum <-> Costa comparison a few times, but I don't think their styles are interchangeable and what works for Gastelum, and the reason why he manages to land how he does, comes from his initial movement (lateral as well as on the centre line) and the way he times his entries, which Costa simply doesn't do and has had no need to do with his raw power and willingness to blindly exchange as long as he lands himself.
Gastelum is a tricker, more limber and creative customer with more guile and ring smarts than Costa - he can walk his man down and make him more wary of the exchange and he's really mean when he gets inside. He also ties up the lead hand, which messes with range and prevents the shape up for a bunch of things Costa got hit with last night.
You'll see just in that following part what I'm referring to and why Adesanya could not set his feet, which led to him using hands and opening himself up to what followed. Check out round 3 for a microcosm of what I'm talking about. Costa just cannot fight like that, the lateral movement, the timing, the constant, unsettling footwork.
None of that stuff is Costa.
Anyone that said there was a gulf between them in the standup was proven right last night because Adesanya's craft shut down the avenues to simply bomb him out or even try to. You're being kind saying it was more a tactic to last the full 25 than a point of realisation from Costa and then a head scratching moment where he was trying to figure out what he could actually do in there - Gastelum has no such issues as he simply knows how to exploit stances and positioning or even prevent it from materialising with his approach.
If they do run it back, Costa is going to have to work out how to get inside with the tools he has because if it is on tracks, there's no reason to think the same thing won't happen again. Adesanya's movement was a bigger problem for Costa in this fight than I thought was possible as I thought Costa could walk through and set his stall, but with Adesanya's equidistance, there was no opportunity for Costa to even try and barrel in.
I agree with what you said about Gastelum himself, though.
