Conor McGregor either has some inside knowledge or is overly confident. It’s likely to be the latter, especially since neither the UFC nor Dana White has yet made an official announcement regarding the UFC White House card in June this year. Despite the clear lack of clarity about the card, McGregor has made bold claims.

The Irishman has already announced that he will be part of the card. And though he’s not part of the drug testing pool yet, he continues to put in the hours at the gym. He shares regular updates regarding his training on social media, and his most recent one now appears to have attracted a plea from former middleweight title contender Paulo Costa.

Paulo Costa wants to learn something from Conor McGregor 

‘The Notorious’ shared a clip from one of his training sessions, where he can be seen performing a reverse grip lat pulldown. “Patience, the ultimate training partner,” McGregor captioned the clip. However, he might not have expected a remark from Paulo Costa in the comments section of his post.

Costa, who defeated Roman Kopylov in his last fight at UFC 318 in July last year, asked McGregor for the address of his gym. “Where is that training center, Conor?” Costa asked, before adding, “I would love to [train] with you to learn something new and [sharpen] my skills.” While not explicitly mentioned in his post, McGregor appeared to be training at his usual facility.

SBG Ireland is the official gym where Conor McGregor trains, and the clip shows similar visuals to SBG. It’s located in Dublin, Ireland, where McGregor lives. But the bigger question is, why does Costa need a new place to train? The Brazilian was expected to fight on UFC 326 this year, but that doesn’t appear to be the case anymore.

Former title challenger rips into ‘The Eraser’ after withdrawal

Costa was scheduled to face Brunno Ferreira in a middleweight bout on March 7 at the T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas, but pulled out of the contest for undisclosed reasons. The decision drew heavy criticism from Darren Till, who took to X to slam the Brazilian.

“This guy is just a big jumped up joke of a juice ed. Has no respect for the sport,” Till wrote. He went even further, adding, “Just quit Costa… You are so so f—king s—t. I think you may be the worst fighter to ever fight in the UFC ever.”

Costa challenged Israel Adesanya for the middleweight title at UFC 253 in 2020, suffering a second-round TKO loss. Since then, he has gone 2-3 in the UFC, with seven fights either canceled or rescheduled. One possible reason could be his training, or lack of it. So, like many UFC stars, a change of locale could do him some good.

But regardless, it does raise a question. Is he fighting someone new now, or is his comment on McGregor’s post merely an effort to stay relevant?