Mark Zuckerberg has taken his well-documented love affair with combat sports to the next level by competing at his very first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu tournament, taking home gold and silver medals for his valiant efforts.
Representing Dave Camarillo’s Guerrilla Jiu-Jitsu in the Masters II Lightweight Division (White Belt), the tech billionaire behind Facebook / Meta found success in both the gi and no-gi events. Although it’s unclear which he placed #1 and #2.
In any case, rolling with the likes of four-time BJJ world champion (coloured belts), five-time IBJJF black belt world champion, and reigning ONE flyweight submission grappling king – Mikey Musumeci – has clearly paid off.
“Competed in my first jiu jitsu tournament and won some medals ?? for the Guerrilla Jiu Jitsu team. Thanks to @davecamarillo @khaiwu @intense0ne for training me!”
Mark Zuckerberg (via Instagram)
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During an episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, Mark Zuckerberg spoke about discovering his newfound passion for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu during the pandemic.
“I basically collected a bunch of recommendations, ran them by a bunch of people that I know. I ended up training with this guy Dave Camarillo [from] Gorilla Jiu Jitsu. He’s awesome, super nice guy. I feel like I’m learning a ton,” Zuckerberg told Rogan.
“It really is the best sport. The question isn’t: ‘How did I get into it?’ It’s: ‘How did I not know about it until just now?’”
“From the very first session that I did, like five minutes in, I was like, ‘Where has this been my whole life?’ My mom made me do three varsity sports and my life took a wrong turn when I chose to do fencing competitively instead of wrestling in high school or something.”
Zuckerberg added: “There’s just something that’s so primal about it… There’s a certain intensity to it that I like. Maybe there’s this cultural thing where a lot of people haven’t considered it.”
“I’ve had 100% hit rate of introducing friends to it and converting them to people who now train. Every single person who I’ve shown it to is like, ‘This is amazing. This is obviously how I should be training and working out.’”
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Outside of grappling alone, Zuckerberg has showcased his MMA prowess on the odd occasion.
Most notably by posting footage of a sparring session against training partner and pro fighter Khai “The Shadow” Wu ahead of the latter’s bout against Joshua Dillon at Uriah Faber’s A1 Combat 5; and yet another sparring session against Aussie UFC featherweight champion and former pound-for-pound king Alexander Volkanovski, partially hosted in the metaverse (see both below).
Now we wait for the inevitable Mark Zuckerberg vs Tom Hardy celebrity BJJ superfight. But given how the Hollywood star is a competition-hardened blue belt with close to a decade’s worth of experience, Zuck will certainly have to train a whole lot more before that can feasibly happen.
