Poker pro Frank Cucchiara, known as “Frankie C,” became the latest YouTuber to get in the ring against a UFC fighter. Predictably, the poker pro got roughed up a bit by former bantamweight champion Sean O’Malley.
O’Malley posted the video of the sparring session on his YouTube channel. During the session, Cucchiara was hit with numerous shots and eventually hit the ground.
“I want him to feel like he got hit by a truck,” O’Malley said before the sparring session. “I want to hurt him in the body, I want to kick his leg a couple times. A hard couple leg kicks. I’m going to try and get him really, really tired.”
The sparring session resulted from O’Malley’s victory in a five-hour heads-up poker match against Cucchiara. The game was a $25-$50 freezeout with a $5,000 buy-in. If O’Malley won, Cucchiara must enter the ring against the UFC fan favorite.
It was a long, swingy match, but O’Malley ended up with all the chips and a $5,000 profit on the felt. As a result, Cucchiara had a few weeks to train before his sparring session with the Arizona resident.
“The poker game was intense, but this was more intense,” O’Malley said of their time in the ring.
Cucchiara, who recently became a Card Player ambassador and has a child with partner and poker pro Kitty Kuo, recorded the poker game for his own YouTube channel. The sparring session is going on both O’Malley’s and Cucchiara’s channel.
“My expectation is not to run, just to embrace that he’s a very scary human being,” Cucchiara said before the fight. “But I don’t think that anything permanent will happen today.”
The two men squared off for three rounds of three minutes each. Cucchiara weighed in at 185 pounds with O’Malley checking in at 158. O’Malley seemed to have the upper hand for most of those three rounds with Cucchiara growing tired as the match progressed. However, considering he faced a former champion, the YouTube creator showed some guts in getting in the ring at all. Watch the complete match below.
Cucchiara, 24, has 167,000 YouTube subscribers, and his videos regularly feature his tournament and cash game play from various tournaments and casinos. The sparring session allowed him to step outside his comfort zone, and in the comment section of the video, he offered an honest assessment of the experience of getting in the ring with O’Malley.
“It was terrifying being in there,” he noted, “hurt like hell getting punched and kicked, but watching it back, Sean is an absolute class act.”
Other poker players have jumped into the ring for some fight sports action.
In 2019, Antonio Esfandiari scored a win over actor and comedian Kevin Hart in a boxing match.
In 2016, Olivier Busquet was the winner of an MMA fight against fellow poker pro JC Alvarado.
Photo courtesy of Shutterstock
