Few individuals thought Sean Strickland had a lot of an opportunity to beat Israel Adesanya at UFC 293 in Sydney, Australia. They weren’t contemplating the acute quantity of unhealthy juju “The Final Stylebender” had courted main into the occasion, although.
Strickland ended up defeating Adesanya with a stable and constant gameplan, preserving tight defensively whereas popping Adesanya with limitless jabs and even knocking the middleweight champ down within the first spherical. The judges scored the struggle 49-46 on all three playing cards, and now “Tarzan” has turn out to be one of the unlikely champions ever.
For his half, Israel Adesanya simply didn’t appear like the assured fighter we’re used to seeing within the cage. He spent the complete bout on the backfoot and by no means managed to get his offense going successfully. Was he injured? Was he burnt out from a busy schedule? Was it simply not his evening? We have now few solutions, as Izzy bounced from the UFC 293 post-fight press convention with out addressing what he felt went unsuitable.
Followers had been left to make up their very own causes for the flop, and lots of have determined to hone in on a twin set of notorious curses which have wreaked havoc on the game up to now.
First off, there’s the Drake curse. The Toronto hip-hop celebrity is a giant sports activities bettor and whereas his report isn’t the worst, he’s been on the shedding facet of sufficient huge cash bets on main fights that it’s turn out to be ‘a factor.’ For UFC 293, “Drizzy” had $500,000 on Izzy to KO Strickland in a guess that will have received him an additional $420,000. As a substitute he’ll stroll away with zero {dollars}.
That is the second time Drake has misplaced a big sum on “The Final Stylebender.” He additionally misplaced a $2 million wager when Alex Pereira knocked out Israel Adesanya at UFC 281. He made a good quantity of that again, although: he caught together with his boy for the rematch, successful $1.84 million off a $400,000 guess that Adesanya would knock Pereira out at UFC 287. The Drake curse struck once more at UFC 293, and we’ll see if “Champagne Papi” tries to recoup his losses for the inevitable rematch.
Then there’s the EA UFC cowl curse, which has a way more constant observe report of wreck in its wake. Virtually each single fighter featured on the duvet of previous EA UFC video games has suffered a fall of their subsequent struggle.
Jon Jones failed a drug check, Ronda Rousey received knocked out, and Jorge Masvidal received knocked out. Conor McGregor misplaced to Nate Diaz after being on the EA UFC 2 cowl, after which to Khabib Nurmagomedov after being on the EA UFC 3 cowl. The one fighter to keep away from the curse was … Israel Adesanya, who beat Paulo Costa after his EA UFC 4 cowl stint.
Two EA UFC covers was simply an excessive amount of to beat, although. Adesanya is on the entrance of EA UFC 5’s Deluxe Version, and what occurs? He loses to Sean Strickland in one of many largest upsets in UFC historical past. We’re not ones to be too superstitious, however there’s sufficient unhealthy luck tied to the EA UFC cowl curse to make you go hmmm.
