Matt Schnell will finally get another shot at Alessandro Costa when the two flyweights meet to close the prelims at UFC Fight Night 278 at the Meta APEX in Las Vegas.
The matchup resurrects a fight that unraveled in September 2024, when Costa pulled out and Schnell instead took a short-notice bout with Cody Durden that ended in a submission loss early in the second round. Imanol Rodriguez’s subsequent withdrawal opened the door for the rebooking.
Schnell framed the return as a reset. “It’s unfortunate that the fight with Imanol fell apart,” he said, but added, “I’m not that mad at it, though, to be perfectly honest. I’m good about it. Alessandro Costa is a former foe, somebody that we had prepared for in the past, so it just felt like let’s just rock with it.”
The fight lands against a sharp backdrop: Schnell has lost four of his past five fights and has been in the UFC for 10 years, a run that began on Season 24 of The Ultimate Fighter and included an LFA flyweight title in 2016. Costa arrives as more than a 4-1 betting favorite, a gap the oddsmakers have made plain even as Schnell speaks of familiarity and opportunity.
Schnell’s profile in this pairing is colored by the moment that followed his Durden defeat. After the loss he removed his gloves and left them in the center of the cage — a gesture he later described as emotional and regrettable. “I think I just pitched a fit there in that moment, and I also thought the UFC was going to cut me,” Schnell said. He added a clearer explanation of the impulse: “Hunter (Campbell) met me in the back, and I’ve got a great relationship with Mick Maynard, but I don't want to leverage that type of thing. I thought it might be my last one, so I figured get ahead of it a little bit and just retire. (Then I could say) I didn't get cut – I retired.”
He has since qualified the act. “Not my best moment, if I'm being honest – an emotional moment, one where, if I could take it back, I would have. But it is what it is,” Schnell said on the eve of the rematch, acknowledging the episode without letting it define his approach to the fight week.
For Costa, the rebooked date closes a small, public loop: he withdrew from the original September 2024 pairing, and now the bout is back on the schedule. UFC.com ran an interview with Costa ahead of his appearance at UFC Fight Night: Muhammad vs Bonfim in Las Vegas on June 6, 2026, underscoring that the organization still sees the matchup as a live piece of the flyweight picture.
The practical outline is simple. The fight ends the prelims at the Meta APEX, and for Schnell the stakes are immediate — a chance to reverse a down slide and to answer the question his glove laydown raised about his future. For Costa the bout is a heavier favorite on paper than fighters usually enjoy at this stage, which adds pressure of its own: beat a veteran coming off a rough stretch and the margin for error narrows; lose and the prospective favorite’s price is suddenly scrutinized.
What to watch when the cage door closes: Schnell’s urgency and whether he can translate familiarity with Costa into timing and takedown defense, and Costa’s ability to capitalize on the betting edge by dictating range and pace. The unresolved question is not whether the fight was salvaged — it was — but what the result will decide about Schnell’s next act after a decade in the organization.
Whichever man leaves Las Vegas with the win will have settled more than a single booking wrinkle; they will have answered whether Schnell’s career resets from that emotional low, or whether Costa turns a rebooked bout into a defining stride up the flyweight ladder.
