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The Drake curse could be on full display again.
The famed rapper, who tends to gamble — and often lose — a lot of money on major sporting events, threw down a $200,000 wager on Jake Paul to upset Anthony Joshua in Miami at Kaseya Center.
“Jakeyyyyy boy. Lock tf in,” he wrote on his Instagram story whole sharing his wager.
Drake joins a crowd of many bettors who are backing the seemingly unthinkable possibility of Paul beating Joshua, a former multiple-time unified heavyweight champion, who, at 36 years old, is still a contender in boxing’s glamour division.
Joshua was famously a 30-to-1 favorite in his memorable, stunning loss to Andy Ruiz Jr. in June 2019 inside Madison Square Garden.
Ruiz, though, was a genuine heavyweight contender who, while filling in for the steroid-positive Jarrell Miller on six weeks’ notice, had accomplished far more in boxing than Paul heading into Friday night’s bout.
Still, Paul has been roughly a 8-to-1 underdog heading into the fight with Joshua, with Drake putting the bet down at +820 at Stake, of which he’s a partner.
Joshua, who has been out of the ring since being knocked out by Daniel Dubois late last year in a bout for the then vacant IBF heavyweight title, is 28-4 with 25 knockouts, and quickly rose to world title status less than four years after winning an Olympic Gold Medal in 2012.
Since 2015, Joshua has been considered one of the best heavyweights in boxing, and arguably the very best from 2016 until running into Oleksandr Usyk in 2021.
Paul, 12-1 with seven knockouts, defeated former middleweight champion and boxing community laughing stock Julio Cesar Chavez in June via unanimous decision.
This was several months following Paul’s win over Mike Tyson last November on Netflix, his debut at the heavyweight division.
Having weighed in at 216.5 pounds, Paul is the lightest opponent Joshua has ever faced.
Joshua, listed at 243.5 pounds at the weigh-in, is Paul’s heaviest opponent by far, though he’s the lightest since that September 2021 bout with Usyk.
English (US)