Mark Zuckerberg’s love of MMA is quickly turning into a new career.
The Meta CEO first discovered the sport in 2020 and quickly became a massive UFC fan before trying to emulate his new idols by studying several martial arts.
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Zuckerberg expressed a particular affection for Brazilian jiu-jitsu during an appearance on Joe Rogan’s popular podcast, but no one had seen him in action until recently.
The social media billionaire first gave the world a glimpse of his newly acquired skills last September when he shared footage from his training sessions with PFL fighter Khai Wu.
UFC stars such as Michael Bisping, Gilbert Burns, Sean O’Malley, Aljamain Sterling, and Max Holloway joined thousands of people who flooded Zuckerberg’s Instagram comment section with kind words.
However, former dual-weight UFC champion Conor McGregor was the biggest MMA star to be impressed by Zuckerberg who he branded ‘F***ing awesome.’
A month later, the 39-year-old sat in the front row and had the time of his life at a private UFC event, but his wife Priscilla Chan appeared to be struggling with the gory sport as she covered her eyes during one particularly gruesome fight.
In February, Zuckerberg got the chance to spar with a UFC champion for the first time as he faced off against featherweight king Alexander Volkanovski in the metaverse.
The metaverse is a virtual reality (VR) space that enables users to interact with each other inside a computer-generated environment.
Zuckerberg and Volkanovski wore MMA gloves and motion capture suits as they threw punches, kicks and even wrestled in real life and as animated characters in the virtual world.
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Last month, the American decided to test himself in a real competition.
Zuckerberg entered a California BJJ tournament and ended up going home with a couple of medals, but he found himself arguing with a referee who claimed he got choked out – something he denies – during one match.
Now, he’s hoping to fight his social media rival, Elon Musk.
When he’s not working on his MMA skills, Zuckerberg is thought to be creating a rival for Twitter, the social media platform Musk purchased in 2022 for $44billion, called ‘Thread’.
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Musk reacted to the news of Zuckerberg’s new site with a couple of sly comments before a fan warned him not to mess with the BJJ champion.
“I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk jokingly replied.
The Facebook founder soon got wind of Musk’s fight offer and appeared to take it seriously as he fired back with a line made famous by UFC icon Khabib Nurmagomedov during his intense rivalry with McGregor.
“Send me location,” he wrote on Instagram, referencing Nurmagomedov’s reaction to McGregor attacking a bus he was travelling on ahead of UFC 223 in April 2018.
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“Vegas Octagon,” Musk tweeted in response to Zuckerberg’s location request before explaining the hilarious tactic he will employ to get the win in his MMA debut.
He added: “I have this great move that I call “The Walrus”, where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing”
Jake Paul offered to promote the fantasy match-up but, despite his fighting words over the internet, it appears Musk has no real interest in actually scrapping with his rival.
So, Zuckerberg may need to look elsewhere for his MMA debut opponent.