Rap superstar Drake earned a whooping $2.7m after betting on Nigerian-born New Zealander Israel Adesanya to beat his arch nemesis Alex Pereira at UFC 287 at the FXT Arena in Florida on Sunday.
The American in two separate bets picked Adesanya to win, placed $400,000 on the Nigerian to win via knock with an expected return of $1.84m while he placed another bet of $500,000 on Adesanya to win the fight with a win return of $885,000.
Adesanya delivered on both bets. He devastatingly knocked out Pereira in the second round of their five-round championship fight, his first win over the Brazilian in four attempts. Pereira beat Adesanya twice in kickboxing in 2016 and 2017 and most recently defeated him to win the UFC middleweight championship belt in 2022.
Adesanya on his part earned as much as $4m from the fight.
It didn’t go all rosy for the Canadian rapper who had shelled out a total of $500,000 on Jorge Mashvidal to beat Brazilian Gilbert Burns via knockout on one ticket and the other for a win but ‘Gambred’ lost the fight via unanimous decision to the Brazilian.
