Just a couple of months ago, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg drew laughs online after sparring with reigning Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) Light Heavyweight champion Alex Pereira. The session was clearly playful — and understandably so — as Pereira could have ended things with a sneeze if he wanted to.
This time around, however, Zuckerberg stepped in with someone a bit closer to his size.
Former UFC Bantamweight champion Merab Dvalishvili, who dropped his title just two weeks ago, shared footage of a three-round sparring session with the tech billionaire — and surprisingly, it wasn’t a complete joke.
Dvalishvili released roughly six minutes of footage from their training session, and while “The Machine” was obviously pulling his punches, the exchanges were real enough. Zuckerberg worked actively, even managing to land a couple of takedowns on the former champion — though he paid for it by catching a slap in return.
Check out the video below:
The session adds to Zuckerberg’s growing reputation as an MMA hobbyist, but everyone better cool it on making fun of the billionaire robot, as UFC CEO Dana White has repeatedly defended him whenever critics pile on.
“People talk s—t about Zuckerberg,” White said. “Zuckerberg is actually a great athlete. He trains in MMA. He surfs. He does all this s—t. Everybody thinks he’s some computer nerd — Mark Zuckerberg will beat the living s—t out of you.”
White didn’t stop there.
“The moral of the story is all of you telephone tough guys and internet tough guys that talk s—t about Mark Zuckerberg?” White added. “Zuckerberg will beat the s—t out of every one of you. Just for the record.”