Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have been teasing a possible mixed martial arts bout over the past few months, but it appears the man behind Meta has had enough of the back and forth.
Following Musk’s recent comments and inability to finalize a date, Zuckerberg posted to Threads to say that he was moving on from the much ballyhooed bout.
“I think we can all agree Elon isn’t serious, and it’s time to move on. I offered a real date. Dana White offered to make this a legit competition for charity. Elon won’t confirm a date, then says he needs surgery, and now asks to do a practice round in my backyard instead. If Elon ever gets serious about a real date and official event, he knows how to reach me. Otherwise, time to move on. I’m going to focus on competing with people who take the sport seriously,” Zuckerberg wrote.
Zuckerberg, who has been diligently training with high-level athletes, then suggested that a prospective bout between the two CEOs would need to be promoted by one of the two major martial arts organizations – the UFC or ONE Championship.
The Northern California resident’s comments on creating a full card got a quick response from ONE Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong, who was keen on the idea and proposed a way to make it the biggest event in martial arts history.
“Let’s do it, Mark! Or we could do a co-promotion to make it truly the biggest fighting event in history. My vote would be ONE vs UFC as main card, me vs Dana [White, UFC president] as co-main, and you vs Elon as main event,” the ONE Co-founder wrote in reply to Zuckerberg’s thread.
Sityodtong went on to offer a prediction for the bout in a recent interview with the South China Morning-Post.
“The martial arts community is small. Consensus from folks who have trained with either or both men is that Mark is way ahead of Elon in terms of technical abilities, fitness, training regimen, etc,” Sityodtong told SCMP’s Nicolas Atkin.
“I could be wrong, but my gut is that Elon is bluffing that he wants to fight Zuck. If he really wanted to fight Mark, he wouldn’t be making up all these conditions, excuses, and stipulations.”
“Elon is doing bicep curls at the office while Mark is fighting people in his backyard cage.”
Although Zuckerberg appears to be moving past a potential scrap with the polarizing Musk, it is clear that he has a similar vision to that of ONE’s Chairman.
The massive collision between the tech founders could headline a spectacular martial arts card between the two giants of martial arts.
While it may not happen, the possible super-event would be a major happening for the sport.