I 100% believe in the cover curse theory
Here’s some more facts to support
Ufc undisputed 3 : Anderson Silva
On the cover in 2012, first loss in his ufc career, back to back losses to Chris Weidman KO in ‘13 and again with the leg break later that same year
Ufc undisputed 2010: Brock Lesnar
On the cover may 2010, after a dominant run at HW suffers first back to back TKO losses to Cain in oct the same year the game was released then to Reem in comeback fight a year later.
Ufc ‘09 undisputed : Forrest griffin
On the cover in May ‘09, gets completely embarrassed n loses to Anderson Silva in ‘09. Although this ones weird because he also got KOd by rashad to lose his title in dec of ‘08. The only thing I can think of is that they decided on the cover athlete long before they announced in March the next year because of his popularity and prior he was still the champion.
The GSP Canada edition is where the whole cover conspiracy thing gets tricky because he was pretty dominant throughout his career except for the Sera loss, but that was 2 years before the cover.