A good majority of the world was surprised to learn billionaire Co-Founder & CEO of Meta/Facebook – Mark Zuckerberg – hasn’t just been quietly training in MMA. He’s been steadily gaining actual proficiency.
Ahead of Uriah Faber’s A1 Combat 5 event, which was hosted in Wheatland, California this past weekend, Zuckerberg publicly wished his training partner Khai “The Shadow” Wu luck for the latter’s professional bout against the 3-2 Joshua Dillon; Wu would eventually lose unanimous decision.
“One of my training partners Khai Wu is making his UFC Fight Pass debut tonight. Go get it Khai and looking forward to a great fight!” Mark Zuckerberg captioned a clip of himself sparring with Wu on Instagram.
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As you can imagine, it didn’t take long for the post to gain viral attention. Due in large part to Zuckerberg’s (shockingly) complete toolbox of technical skills. We’re talking kickboxing combinations, checking + cross-checking, head movement, defensive sprawling, an incredibly slick single-leg takedown, and even arm bars on both sides from closed guard.
“Yo! Fucking awesome Mark!” said former two-division UFC champion Conor McGregor.
“Looking the goods,” said Australia’s UFC featherweight champion and #1 pound-for-pound fighter Alexander Volkanovski.
“This is great! I’m so happy to see this. Training looks solid too!” said UFC colour commentator Joe Rogan.
Suffice it to say, there was no shortage of love for the fella giving mixed martial arts a red-hot go.
RELATED: WATCH – Mark Zuckerberg’s Sparring Session With Alexander Volkanovski (In The Metaverse)
During a recent episode of the Joe Rogan Experience, Mark Zuckerberg spoke about discovering his newfound passion for Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and MMA 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.”
“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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This revelation comes weeks after actor Tom Hardy swept his division in the 2022 REORG Open Jiu-Jitsu Championship to win double gold.
For context, the 44-year-old actor of Mad Max: Fury Road, The Dark Knight Rises, Venom, and Peaky Blinders fame has been (sporadically) training in BJJ since 2011; shortly after production wrapped for his masterpiece of an MMA drama Warrior. At the time of this writing, Tom Hardy is a four-stripe blue belt on the precipice of purple.
Of course, Hardy and Zuckerberg aren’t the only celebrity advocates for BJJ. Aside from the obvious names such as Joe Rogan and the late Anthony Bourdain, everyone from Henry Cavill, Jonah Hill, Demi Lovato, and Mario Lopez, to Russell Brand, Keanu Reeves, and Jim Carrey have been known to grace the mats.
On the top end of Hollywood’s martial arts pecking order, Ashton Kutcher has recently earned the rank of brown belt under Rigan Machado, while director Guy Ritchie and sitcom fixture Ed O’Neill have long been BJJ black belts.
Anyways, check out Mark Zuckerberg during an MMA training session with Khai Wu below.
