Featured Image Credit: Instagram/ishowspeed / X/@acdmma_
Content creators getting in the ring with professional fighters is certainly nothing new, but this popular streamer might have bitten off more than he can chew.
Darren "iShowSpeed" Watkins Jr. has exploded in popularity over the past few years, with much of it to do with his active engagement in sport, alongside traveling the world on YouTube.
The 19-year-old has shown his strengths in competition by winning MrBeast's $100k Wipeout obstacle course, and he almost held his own in a race against the world's fastest man, but fighting is perhaps not his strong suit.
Heading now to New Zealand, the social media star found himself in City Kickboxing, which is notoriously the country's best spot for MMA, training huge names in the UFC scene like Israel Adesanya, Alexander Volkanovski, and Kai Kara-France.
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Also among these alumni is Lightweight UFC fighter Dan "The Hangman" Hooker, and that was who iShowSpeed unfortunately found himself against in the cage that day.
Speed just got the shit beaten out of him by Dan Hooker 😭😭 pic.twitter.com/AsGKGnqHVl
— ACD MMA (@acdmma_) November 25, 2024
While it was far from a serious fight, and Speed stipulated that there would be "No kicking," it still didn't take long for Hooker to drop the YouTuber to the floor.
A flurry of punches sent Speed tumbling, and he was quickly left cowering in a ball at the edge of the octagon - not that we can blame him either!
Upon leaving the octagon, Speed admitted: "You a good a** fighter, I could tell you were going easy on me."
Hooker certainly had his fun with the situation too, posting a short reel to Instagram of the fight that shows him dispatching the YouTuber with ease.
He didn't refrain from complimenting Speed in another post though, as a post-fight picture of the pair was captioned: "Balls of steel this man."
If there's something you certainly can't fault iShowSpeed for, it's his courage and willingness to try pretty much anything out there.
"Bro was smiling while beating him up [laughing emoji]" says one commenter on Hooker's reel, while another praises his opponent, saying that you "have to hand it to Speed... The dude's a hell of an athlete."
This might not be Speed's last adventure into the ring though, as he recently claimed in an interview that he'd be up for challenging the recently victorious Jake Paul:
"Give me six months to train, and I can beat Jake Paul. I think I'd knock him out in the fifth or sixth round."
Paul is certainly no stranger to YouTuber fights, nor he is against fighting those with less experience than him, so perhaps his post-Tyson challenge could indeed be the globe-trotting iShowSpeed.
