For those of you who are very “online”, you have probably heard that there are talks about a potential duel between Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg and Tesla’s Elon Musk. Even if you don’t like combat sports, I bet most of you will be watching to watch the battle between these two even if you hope they both lose somehow. As a resident boxer of Jalopnik, I will make my predictions on who will put their hands on the court.
So, how did we even get to the point of having a fight between the two richest CEOs in Silicon Valley? For the most part, it all started with reports of Zuckerberg entering some local Brazilian JiuJitsu tournaments and even winning a few medals. There are some reports that Zuck was eliminated in another tournament but experienced observers seem to think he just hit the drums and lost that match.
I would say that Zuck get a lot of criticism for a lot of things, and rightly so. But choosing to practice and compete in BJJ at the age of nearly 40 has received support from me. I studied many martial arts when I was a kid then stopped practicing around the age of 25. I started BJJ two years ago when I was 40 years old and was regularly hit in the face by younger, stronger and/or better people on the carpet. call it a fun experience… but for some strange reason, I keep going back to class.
All this hype surrounding Zuck’s martial arts competitions finally reached the ears of Elon, who had to Tweet about everything, and say he “up for a cage fight if he [Zuckerberg] To be.’ Zuck, on his Instagram, replied with “Send me location”. And because the internet is invincible, this potential has become the tech/celebrity news we’ve all been talking about. Because let’s be honest here, this is a lot more interesting than whatever silly VR Meta is doing or the relentless conversation about how Tesla’s “Full Self-Driving” is anything but .
UFC President Dana White has been recorded to say that both are “seriously dead” about this fight and I think the UFC will want some action if it really comes to fruition.
If it happens, who should you bet on? Take a “tape story” as they say.
Elon Musk is 51 years old this year and most sources say he is about 6 feet tall tall, with reported weights ranging from 180-200 pounds. That’s a significant size advantage over Mark Zuckerberg, who is 38 years old, about 5 feet-7 tall, and about 155 pounds. In Zuck’s recent BJJ matches, he competed at the 149-pound weight limit. We’re probably looking at a weight difference of up to 50 pounds and anyone who tells you “size doesn’t matter” is lying. or have never actually had intercourse with someone superior to them.
Of course, if a match does happen it is highly unlikely that any sports committee would sanction a match with such a large weight difference. There’s a reason professional boxers have weight classes. This battle will probably fall into some kind of “weight” and maybe Zuck goes up to 165 and Elon drops to 180. That 15 pound number the difference still favors Musk.
Zuck, on the other hand, offers more benefits to neutralize that advantage of scale. For starters, he’s younger, and unless a 52-year-old is a dedicated athlete, they’ll have a hard time in any physical competition with a 38-year-old.
The biggest and most obvious factor here is training. Mark Zuckerberg has recently been hooked on martial arts training. He has been practicing Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu for about a year and there is some footage of him also practicing mixed martial arts. He made a virtual fight with UFC champion Alex Volkanovski and shared with ONE FC wrestling champion and BJJ phenomenon Mikey Muscemeci.
Zuck also practiced fencing in college, and although this match will not involve swordsmanship, the athleticism, timing, and footwork of fencing still have some effect.
However, we haven’t taken into account Musk yet. In an interview with Joe Rogan:
Musk describes himself as a “nerd” kid, and the billionaire said he learned Brazilian karate, judo and jiu jitsu at a young age.
Billionaires also struggled. Last year, Musk say on Twitter that he managed to “throw the world champion sumo wrestler” at a party. However, the experience caused him to slip a disc in his neck.
Unlike Zuckerberg, Musk doesn’t seem to be keeping up with his training, but having that facility would certainly help if both sides agree on a training camp to prepare for this match.
Overall, Zuckerberg has the skill advantage while Elon has the power advantage. I give Zuck a 3 to 1 win against Elon. Some might believe this isn’t even a competition, but Elon has a puncher’s chance and Zuck is still fairly new to combat sports and there’s evidence of him making mistakes. when you just started playing.
If Zuck can manage his distance sensibly and score a good kill, he has a really good chance of finishing the first round through submission. On the other hand, if Musk has some wrestling skills as he claims, this could be closer than most people anticipate. A good wrestler can even give an intermediate BJJ practitioner money. If this turns into a grappling match and Zuck kills one of them signature foot lock taught by “Darth Rigatoni” It’s unlikely that Musk will have an answer to it.
So it looks like Zuck is a fan of the bets, with Elon still in the game if he can land the right punch or deliver some good grappling on the table. As for the possibility of this war actually happening… I’d say it’s almost zero. But it will certainly be interesting to watch.
