{"id":252969,"date":"2025-10-31T19:45:09","date_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:45:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/252969\/"},"modified":"2025-10-31T19:45:09","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T19:45:09","slug":"mark-zuckerberg-takes-down-ufc-star-alex-pereira-in-viral-video","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/252969\/","title":{"rendered":"Mark Zuckerberg Takes Down UFC Star Alex Pereira in Viral Video"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">Mark Zuckerberg has again turned heads in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/sports\/mma\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">MMA<\/a> world, this time by taking down a reigning <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newsweek.com\/topic\/ufc\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC<\/a> champion.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">UFC light heavyweight champion Alex Pereira uploaded a series of <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DQc2SH0EXtV\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">pictures and clips<\/a> to his <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/alexpoatanpereira\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Instagram<\/a> account on Thursday, and they quickly became viral among mixed martial arts fans.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/DQcWZLxiYOs\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">One of them<\/a> showed the Meta CEO successfully landing a takedown on Pereira during their grappling session together.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">The training took place at Cruz Mixed Martial Arts Academy in Nutley, New Jersey, and it was led by Pereira\u2019s longtime coach, Plinio Cruz. Pereira indicated the session happened shortly after his UFC 320 victory over Magomed Ankalaev on Oct. 4, in what he said was his &#8220;first training&#8221; after that matchup.<\/p>\n<p>Loading twitter content&#8230;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">Despite a clear size difference, footage showed Zuckerberg, 41, holding his own against the Brazilian powerhouse before executing a takedown that sent the UFC star to the mat, even though Pereira could have done more to prevent that from happening.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">The clip immediately spread across social media, with fans pointing out Pereira\u2019s restraint but also acknowledging Zuckerberg\u2019s skill and technique for someone who can only consider himself an amateur in the world of MMA.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">The Facebook founder, however, has trained for several years in mixed martial arts and Brazilian jiu-jitsu, working alongside top UFC fighters including Israel Adesanya, Alexander Volkanovski and Mackenzie Dern. He claimed his first jiu-jitsu medals back in May 2023.<\/p>\n<p><img id=\"8451840\" alt=\"Alex Pereira celebrates after defeating Jiri Prochazka in a light heavyweight championship bout during UFC 303 at T-Mobile Arena on June 29, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\" caption=\"Alex Pereira celebrates after defeating Jiri Prochazka  in a light heavyweight championship bout during UFC 303 at T-Mobile Arena on June 29, 2024 in Las Vegas, Nevada.\" captionoverride=\"Alex Pereira celebrates after defeating Jiri Prochazka in a light heavyweight championship bout during UFC 303 at T-Mobile Arena on June 29, 2024, in Las Vegas, Nevada.\" credit=\"Ian Maule\/Getty Images\" sourcealt=\"Ian Maule\/Getty Images\" sources=\"[]\" fetchpriority=\"auto\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"2500\" height=\"1667\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" style=\"color:transparent;aspect-ratio:inherit;object-fit:cover\"   src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/2451840-ufc-fighter-alex-pereira.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">Zuckerberg has also developed a close relationship with UFC CEO Dana White, the latter having <a href=\"https:\/\/about.fb.com\/news\/2025\/01\/dana-white-john-elkann-charlie-songhurst-meta-board-of-directors\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">joined<\/a> Meta\u2019s board of directors in January 2025. A few months later, in June, White <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tmz.com\/2025\/06\/23\/dana-white-mark-zuckerberg-brazilian-jiu-jitsu-promotion\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">suggested<\/a> that Zuckerberg could eventually compete in the UFC\u2019s Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu division.<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">&#8220;If Mark keeps training and competing and whatever, he could literally come here and fight in UFC BJJ, 100 percent,&#8221; White told TMZ. &#8220;Tom Hardy, Mario Lopez and many, many other actors that are really good jiu-jitsu guys that nobody knows about. That would be absolutely awesome!&#8221;<\/p>\n<p class=\"Paragraph_blockParagraph__I2kr4\">Zuckerberg suffered a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/p\/CzMx731POlJ\/?hl=en\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">torn ACL in 2023<\/a> while preparing for a potential exhibition fight, but he appears fully recovered based on this new Pereira footage. That said, there are no official plans for his potential UFC BJJ debut.<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"\/\/www.instagram.com\/embed.js\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mark Zuckerberg has again turned heads in the MMA world, this time by taking down a reigning UFC&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":252970,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[444],"tags":[49,48,641,638,82,640],"class_list":{"0":"post-252969","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mma","8":"tag-ca","9":"tag-canada","10":"tag-fighting","11":"tag-mma","12":"tag-sports","13":"tag-ufc"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252969","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=252969"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/252969\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/252970"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=252969"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=252969"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=252969"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}