Just days away from the historic clash between Aussie featherweight champion Alexander Volkanovski and current lightweight titleholder Islam Makhachev at UFC 284, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has posted footage of the sparring session he shared with the homegrown challenger which – get this – was partially hosted in the metaverse.
“Last year, UFC #1 pound-for-pound fighter Alexander Volkanovski stopped by Meta HQ to train with me,” Mark Zuckerberg explained in the caption.
“And for fun, we tested the limits of our performance avatars with motion capture in our Engage gear. Good luck this weekend, Alex!”
Similar to an earlier showcase of his MMA prowess against training partner Khai “The Shadow” Wu, Zuckerberg actually demonstrated a solid foundation: head movement, countering, and even feeling confident enough to attempt a flying knee against The Great.
It was to the point the billionaire received praise from the likes of UFC rostered talent such as Gilbert Burns, Chito Vera, and women’s strawweight champion Zhang Weili.
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During an 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.”
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“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.’”
UFC 284: Islam Makhachev vs Alexander Volkanovski goes down this Sunday at the RAC Arena, Perth (Main Card Local Time – February 12h of 2023, 2 PM [AEDT]) – the promotion’s first pay-per-view event to take place on our sunburnt shores since 2019 and its 16th trip to Australia overall.
