10 MMA Fighters Who Would Be Terrible at Poker

Fighting and poker look like close relatives since they both reward nerve, reading an opponent, and committing at the right moment. But the cage rewards aggression and spectacle. A poker table mostly punishes them. The traits that sell pay-per-views are often the same ones that empty a chip stack.

This list is all in good fun. It is based on public personas, press conferences, and fight-night moments, not anyone’s actual card skills. One fighter here is, in fact, a pretty decent player.

What makes someone bad at poker

Let’s start with the basics: three things sink most players.

• Tells, the involuntary signals that give away a hand.
• Tilt, when frustration after a bad beat leads to worse decisions.
• Impatience, because good poker is mostly folding and waiting.

That last one is about as far from a five-round war as a game can get.

Nobody has to learn these lessons at a high-stakes table anymore. Play-money and sweepstakes formats let people practice reading opponents without much on the line. Readers curious to try can compare the best sweepstakes casinos on this website.

Now, the fighters.

1. Chael Sonnen

Sonnen built a career on talking. His build-up to the 2010 title fight with Anderson Silva became a template for MMA trash talk, and he has spent much of his retirement as one of the sport’s busiest broadcasters and storytellers.

At a poker table, that is a problem. A player who narrates everything eventually narrates his own hand. Opponents would not need to read Sonnen. They would just need to listen.

There is also a poker lesson in that Silva fight. Sonnen dominated for most of five rounds, then got caught in a triangle choke in the final round. Poker players know that feeling. Being ahead for most of the hand means nothing if you lose the river.

2. Conor McGregor

McGregor’s gift is making predictions and then fulfilling them. He called a first-round knockout of José Aldo and finished him in 13 seconds in 2015. It’s great for the showmanship, but in poker it’s how players go broke.

Poker punishes certainty because even a strong hand can lose, and it does so quite often. A player who treats every big pot as a chance to make a statement would raise too often or call too light.

Great television. Expensive hobby.

3. Nate Diaz

Diaz took a fight with McGregor on less than two weeks’ notice in 2016 and won it. That says a lot about his willingness to accept any challenge, at any time, from anyone.

Poker asks for the opposite. Most hands should be folded without a second thought.

Diaz’s career suggests a man who would find hours of quiet folding unbearable, and who might go all in simply because someone across the table looked at him the wrong way.

4. Tony Ferguson

Ferguson’s peak was extraordinary. He won 12 straight UFC fights between 2013 and 2019 and captured interim lightweight gold. What followed was the longest losing streak in UFC history. He left the promotion on eight straight defeats, refused to retire through all of it, and later picked up a win in boxing.

That refusal is admirable in a fighter. In poker, it has a name: chasing.

Ferguson’s famously unorthodox training and chaotic, all-action style would make him a nightmare to play against for a few hands. Over a long session, the chips would almost certainly drift elsewhere.

5. Colby Covington

Here is the twist. Covington actually plays poker, and plays it well enough to cash. In 2022, he made the final table of a record-setting tournament at the Seminole Hard Rock Poker Open in Florida, finishing seventh out of more than 7,600 entrants. He has since retired from MMA and spends plenty of time at the World Series of Poker.

So why is he on this list? Because the “Chaos” persona travels with him.

Covington built his fighting career on relentless, provocative trash talk, and he has not left it in the cage. In 2025, he and Henry Cejudo nearly came to blows during a poker tournament. A man who talks that much at the table is handing out free information.

His results suggest he survives it anyway, which only makes the image funnier.

6. Khabib Nurmagomedov

Khabib retired at 29-0. He walked away at his peak in 2020, kept a promise to his mother after his father’s death, and never returned for a payday.

That discipline would make him an odd poker player. He would probably fold almost everything. Marginal hands, speculative draws, cute bluffs, all gone. Then, on the rare occasion he committed chips, nobody would want to be on the other side of it.

So why “terrible”? Because extreme discipline is predictable.

Sharp opponents would steal blind after blind, knowing Khabib only plays premium hands. He would rarely lose big. He would also rarely win much.

7. Israel Adesanya

Adesanya treats fighting as performance art. Dance-choreographed walkouts, anime-inspired celebrations, and pointed post-fight taunts are part of the package. It’s great in MMA, but Poker rewards boring.

The most profitable poker play is often the least exciting one. A player who wants every hand to be a highlight would bluff into strong ranges, slow-play for drama, and chase the spectacular when a simple fold would do.

8. Sean Strickland

Strickland has one unexpected poker credential. When he fought Adesanya for the middleweight title at UFC 293 in 2023, sportsbooks had him as roughly a +450 underdog, and he won a unanimous decision anyway.

Underdogs win sometimes. Good poker players respect that.

The problem is everything else. Strickland is one of the most unfiltered interviewees in combat sports, saying whatever crosses his mind without pausing for strategy.

A poker face requires a filter. He seems to have deliberately thrown his away.

9. Jorge Masvidal

Masvidal produced the fastest knockout in UFC history, a flying knee that finished Ben Askren in five seconds in 2019. Later that year, he won the one-off “BMF” belt.

His reputation rests on settling scores, from backyard street fights early in his career to grudge matches on the biggest stages. That mindset would be ruinous with cards.

Poker players have to let go of who beat them last hand. Masvidal seems like someone who would call a big bet just to prove a point, then call the next one to prove it again.

10. Dustin Poirier

Poirier is one of the most respected fighters of his era. He beat McGregor twice in 2021 and fought in three undisputed lightweight title fights against Khabib Nurmagomedov, Charles Oliveira, and Islam Makhachev, without winning the belt. He retired after a final war with Max Holloway in New Orleans in July 2025.

What makes him great in a fight is his willingness to stand and trade, even when a calmer option exists.

At a poker table, that becomes the habit of calling too often. “I’ll see what you’ve got” is a fan-favorite attitude in the cage. In poker, it is a slow leak.

The takeaway

The common thread is simple.

Fighters are rewarded for refusing to back down. Poker rewards knowing exactly when to.

Covington’s results prove that personality is not destiny. For most of this list, though, the cage remains the better bet.