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A fight to potentially determine the next man to get a shot at middleweight champion Israel Adesanya has been pushed off its spot as the April 17 UFC Fight Night main event. Paulo Costa is out of his scheduled battle with former 185-pound champion Robert Whittaker after battling the flu, ESPN and MMA Fighting reported on Tuesday.

Speaking with MMAFighting, Costa's brother and coach, Carlos, said they were just looking to delay the fight by one or two weeks. According to Costa, his brother initially had COVID-19 before a follow-up case of the flu.

"[Paulo's] symptoms were moderate," Carlos said. "But there's an issue: He never stopped training. He continued training. He hasn't fully recovered since then. He had sore throat, and then a huge secretion in the chest. His physical conditioning dropped a little bit, and then a few weeks ago he had this severe flu. We'll get [a] chest X-ray and other exams done to see if COVID has affected anything."

Instead, Whittaker will take on a foe he was supposed in February 2019 on that date: Kelvin Gastelum, according to ESPN's Brett Okomato. The two were set to battle for the middleweight title in Australia, but Whittaker was forced off the card on the day of the fight with a collapsed bowel and internal hernia that sent him to the hospital for emergency surgery.

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Whittaker lost the middleweight championship to Adesanya by knockout at UFC 243 in October 2019 but has rebounded with wins over Darren Till and Jared Cannonier in his two most recent fights. The loss to Adesanya had snapped a nine-fight winning streak for Whittaker and was his first defeat since February 2014.

Gastelum bounced back from a three-fight losing skid in February when he scored a decision win over Ian Heinisch. Gastelum worked his way to a title opportunity, but was forced to settle for an interim title bout with Adesanya instead. The two put on one of the best fights of the decade in a back-and-forth war that saw Adesanya claim the crown by decision.

Adesanya is without a clear challenger at 185 pounds but announced his intention to return to the division and continue his reign after coming up short in his bid to win the light heavyweight championship from Jan Blachowicz at UFC 259. All indications were that the fight between Whittaker and Costa would set up a high-profile rematch for the title as the division sorts itself out.

It is not known if the fight will be rescheduled or if Whittaker will face a replacement opponent.