ONE Championship Chairman and CEO Chatri Sityodtong wasn’t impressed with Elon Musk’s last attempt to goad Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
The two billionaire tech founders have been going back and forth on a potential fight for some time, with the man behind brands like Tesla and X (formerly Twitter) most recently said he was planning on showing up at Zuckerberg’s house for the battle.
Sityodtong called it bullying behavior and had harsh criticism for Musk in a Facebook post.
“First, Elon genuinely knows nothing about fighting or martial arts despite his claims to the contrary. As a lifelong expert martial artist who has been in my fair share of scraps, I can tell simply by the way he is acting. The problem with most men who have never fought and/or trained seriously in martial arts is exactly what Elon is doing. They have a false sense of bravado and no understanding or appreciation for what technical skills and knowledge can do in a fight. A legit blue belt in jiu-jitsu is very dangerous to someone who knows nothing,” the ONE co-founder wrote.
Sityodtong remarked that he can tell when someone is interested in competing or not and made it clear that he believes Musk is putting up a front.
But should all the bluffs be called, and the match finally takes place, Sityodtong doesn’t give the South African CEO much of a chance against Zuckerberg, given that he has been dedicating a lot of his time to training in recent years.
“The global martial arts community is small. Consensus from people who have trained with Mark and/or Elon is that there is a large gap in skills in favor of Mark. Mark might be new to martial arts, but he is a real martial artist. He is a legit blue belt in jiu-jitsu under Dave Camarillo and consistently trains hard multiple times a week. Professor Dave [Camarillo] is genuinely one of the finest black belts on the planet, and his knowledge of both jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts is unparalleled,” Sityodtong continued.
Sityodtong has first-hand experience training alongside Zuckerberg, having been invited to train with the Facebook creator by the man himself on a recent tour of the U.S. – and he was impressed by what he saw.
“Mark might be only 2 years into his journey as a martial artist, but he has fully adopted the warrior way of life. In my expert opinion, Mark will likely choke Elon unconscious in a fight. Elon could win by a lucky punch due to his size and weight. He’s 186cm and weighs 100kg. Mark is 171cm and weighs 70kg. However, Mark is in fighting shape, and Elon is not. Mark has the gas tank for 3 rounds, and Elon has the gas tank for 3 minutes,” he predicted.
Sitydotong believes a battle between Zuckerberg and Musk would be one-sided in favor of the latter. But, given Musk’s recent comments, it is clear that the likelihood of it ever coming to fruition is slim to none.