Picture: Getty Pictures/UFC
A white belt enrolled as “Mark Elliot” within the Featherweight Grasp
1 class stole the present final week in a Silicon Valley BJJ occasion.
When “Mr. Elliot” stepped onto the tatame for his first match, the
viewers came upon his surname: Zuckerberg.
The creator of Fb competed a complete of 3 times within the
occasion: two with gi and one with out. Within the no-gi competitors he received
his lone bout, netting the gold medal, whereas within the gi he received his
first match earlier than shedding within the last through Ezekiel choke, incomes
silver. Zuckerberg, who made MMA headlines in October by attending
a closed to the general public UFC Struggle Night time 211 on the Apex in Las
Vegas, had already declared his ardour for jiu-jitsu on Ep. 267 of
the Lex Fridman podcast, saying, “In my first-class, within the first
5 minutes I assumed: The place has this been, my complete life?
Positively jiu-jitsu is the perfect sport.” What most could not think about
is that he would present up in a contest.
Occasion promoter and BJJ coral belt Claudio Franca, who was additionally the
first teacher of Final Preventing Championship and Strikeforce middleweight champ Luke
Rockhold, revealed that Zuckerberg’s solely calls for have been that he
be allowed to enroll underneath his center title, and that there be no
publicity round his participation.
“He simply confirmed up and competed. It was such an honor for us to
have such an necessary individual right here,” Franca informed Sherdog. “After I
arrived right here in California again on 1996, jiu-jitsu was seen as simply
being for tough-guy varieties that wished to be MMA fighters. It is
actually wonderful to see that jiu-jitsu is [now] fashionable among the many
complete household, being practiced by all varieties of folks. I really hope
Mark favored the expertise and can come to take part in different
editions.”
