Israel Adesanya claims the 'Drake curse' is one of four he has broken after the rapper won a $1million bet on his UFC 276 title fight.
Drake has been known for giving fighters and sports teams bad luck after publicly backing them ahead of major events. Most recently, the award-winning recording artist bet six-figure sums on Jorge Masvidal and Justin Gaethje to win their respective title fights, with both going on to lose.
Adesanya was a big favourite heading into his middleweight title defence against Jared Cannonier in Las Vegas, with Drake comfortably winning a $1m wager on the champion. 'The Last Stylebender' has since dismissed the curse whilst citing examples of other MMA curses he has broken.
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"Shoutout to Drizzy," he told reporters. "I don't know what he won but what f***ing curse? I don't post s*** but for the Vettori fight, me and Drizzy were going back and forth talking during fight week. After that fight we were still talking in the DMs as well so I don't know people, what curse?"
"Also the green short, another curse. I've broken all the curses, the Drake curse, the shorts curse because apparently I changed my shorts from black and gold. EA cover curse I've broken that, embedded haircut curse. So stupid you f****ng c****.
Fighters who have appeared on the cover of the EA Sports UFC video games have gone on to lose their next fights, such as Conor McGregor, Ronda Rousey and Jorge Masvidal. Adesanya appeared on the cover of UFC 4 in 2020 and won his next fight after that by knocking out Paulo Costa.
In the UFC embedded video series, fighters who have had their haircut often go on to lose their next fight. Adesanya dismissed any sort of hypothetical curses in MMA and thinks fans follow the trend to try and receive attention on social media.
"As soon as that video came out, all of the comments were like 'curse, curse'. I feel like they don't even believe it, they are just saying it to try and get likes. So shoutout to Drake for betting a milly on me and I'll see you on OVO weekend," he added.
Adesanya made the fifth defence of his 185lb title by outpointing Cannonier and has seemingly set-up a fight against his former kickboxing rival Alex Pereira with the win. UFC newcomer Pereira - who has beaten Adesanya twice in kickboxing - was cageside for the champion's title defence after knocking out Sean Strickland on the card.
