It was recently announced that current UFC light heavyweight champion Jon Jones would grace the cover of EA’s new video game based on the UFC. Another fighter is expected to grace the cover with the champ. Having your likeness on the cover of a video game is a huge honor, but it can be a curse as well. Just ask almost anybody who has ever graced the cover of an NFL Madden game.
If you’re not familiar with the Madden curse, then I’ll break it down for you. Until ‘99, John Madden himself was featured on the cover of each game. For the PAL release of the game, EA decided to feature a player rather than Madden himself. San Francisco 49ers running back Garrison Hearst was chosen.
Hearst was having a spectacular season and was breaking records left and right. After receiving the cover honors, he then helped lead the 49ers to a divisional playoff game, where he broke his ankle. The break was so bad that Hearst missed two full seasons and was never the same again.
The curse was born. It was started off as a joke, but it just kept getting worse. Barry Sanders, Eddie George, Dante Culpepper, Michael Vick, Ray Lewis, Donovan McNabb, Shaun Alexander, Vince Young, Drew Brees, Peyton Hillis, Larry Fitzgerald, and Troy Polamalu were all players who suffered due to the Madden curse.
The worse one by far has to be Brett Favre. After a illustrious career, Favre was finally put on the cover of the franchise. Favre just retired right before the release and it looked like the curse was gone. By the time the game was released Favre was unretired and not even on the Packers anymore. He signed with the Jets. So when fans bought Madden, the cover athlete wasn’t even on the team he was on, on the cover. Being a Bears fan, I thought the whole situation was hilarious, and the curse lived on.
The big question remains, is Madden the only video game franchise with a curse? UFC video games have been around for sometime now, and it seems like the UFC curse is a thing as well. Could Jon Jones be the next victim? The UFC released a game in 2004 dubbed Sudden Impact. The cover featured Phil Baroni. That’s a curse all in its own right.
Almost everyone who has graced the cover of a UFC game has had bad luck. Tito Ortiz was on the rise and was given the honor of being the cover athlete for UFC Throwdown. After his cover shot, he would then lose back to back to Randy Couture and Chuck Liddell. Ever since the UFC announced their Undisputed video game franchise, every cover athlete has discovered and witnessed the UFC video game curse.
Forrest griffin was the first cover athlete for the franchise, and right after he would lose his title to Rashad Evans. After that he would lose in an embarrassing performance against Anderson Silva. Griffin would never be the same.
Brock Lesnar would join the UFC scene and became the most talked about fighter in the organization. So putting him on the cover was inevitable. Shortly after his cover, he would almost be derailed by Shane Carwin, before being dethroned by Cain Velasquez. Anderson Silva would be the next fighter to get his likeness on the cover. Silva actually wasn’t really cursed until the Chris Weidman loss.
The curse just doesn’t exist in the Madden world. Jones looks to be unstoppable, but he was almost derailed by Alexander Gustafsson in a back and forth war. Not to mention Jones has some tough fights ahead of him.
He will be tested against top contender Glover Teixeira and then is expected to rematch against “The Mauler.” Plus, you also have Daniel Cormier in the mix.
A lot can happen between now and the video games release. Will Jones be dethroned or will he break the curse? Only time will tell.