Overcoming the odds has become old hat for Jan Blachowicz and the UFC’s reigning light-heavyweight title holder did it again this past weekend.
Blachowicz upset middleweight king Israel Adesanya at UFC 259 as a two-to-one underdog in their champion vs. champion clash despite being the athlete from the bigger weight class.
It’s a story with which Blachowicz and his supporters have become quite familiar.
The Polish fighter has opened as the underdog in 11 of his 16 career UFC bouts, per Best Fight Odds, and in two of the fights where he opened as the favourite he ended up closing as the underdog.
“I stopped listening to what people say,” Blachowicz said at the UFC Apex after handing Adesanya his first mixed martial arts loss. “For me, the most important thing is what my family says, what my coaches say, what my friends say. What people that I never see in my life and what they say? Who cares? … When I’m the underdog everybody says, ‘He doesn’t have enough to win the fight.’ After I won what do you say now?”
Any of the 38-year-old’s supporters who have put their money where their mouth is should be saying “thank you!”
If you had hypothetically placed a $10 wager on Blachowicz at closing odds before each of his UFC appearances, your Blachowicz bankroll would be up to more than $140 after UFC 259’s result.
Blachowicz has been particularly impressive during his current five-fight winning streak that has seen him listed as the underdog four times.
So, keeping with the hypotheticals, if you began betting on Blachowicz during his recent hot streak and let it ride (meaning you take your winnings from the previous fight and place it all on Blachowicz to win his next fight) then an initial $10 wager for him to beat Luke Rockhold at UFC 239 would’ve turned into roughly $1,000 five wins later.
Blachowicz is expected to face fellow 205-pound stalwart Glover Teixeira for his next title defence and low and behold the current champ opened as a -190 favourite.
“I defended my belt. Now I prove that I’m a true champion and I think now I’m going to have respect from everybody,” Blachowicz added. “In the next fight, I will not be the underdog anymore. But I don’t care anyway.”
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