Israel Adesanya
Nigerian-New Zealander MMA fighter and two-time UFC middleweight champion whose licensed AI likeness stars in Higgsfield's feature The Cully Hill Boys.
- Credits
- 1
- Avg AIPopDB score
- 81
- Views across credits
- 473.4K
- Active since
- 2026
MMMAnytt · CC BY 3.0
- Nature
- Human
- Department
- Acting
- Based in
- Lagos, Nigeria
- Active since
- 2026
- 1 credit
Biography
Israel Adesanya is a Nigerian-New Zealander mixed martial artist, former kickboxer and boxer, born in Lagos on 22 July 1989 and nicknamed The Last Stylebender. He twice held the UFC middleweight title, first by beating Robert Whittaker in October 2019 and again by regaining the belt from Alex Pereira in April 2023. As a kickboxer he challenged for the Glory middleweight title in 2017, and a documentary about him, Stylebender, debuted at Tribeca in 2023.
His AI-film credit is Higgsfield's The Cully Hill Boys, a 110-minute action comedy generated with AI. Adesanya did not shoot any scenes: like the other leads, he signed a licensing agreement letting Higgsfield use his likeness. Reports say each cast member supplied high-resolution photos and voice recordings under contracts covering pay, scope of use and script review, and Higgsfield says the source material was deleted within 30 days of wrap and may not be kept, used for training or licensed to others.
The film premiered in New York on 5 August 2026 with AI versions of Adesanya, Quinton 'Rampage' Jackson, N3on and Matt Kiatipis, and was then released online. Adesanya responded on social media with a joking 'Chewsday innit bruv!', while fan reaction to the trailer was split between surprise at the likenesses and dismissal of the project as AI slop.