Israel Adesanya barely broke sweat as Mark Zuckerberg attempted to choke him out during a recent training session.
UFC middleweight champion Adesanya, 33, got in some time on the mats with Zuckerberg in light of his potential fight against Elon Musk. The tech bosses agreed to fight each other in a cage last month and Musk has since been pictured training alongside UFC legend Georges St-Pierre and his coach John Danaher.
Adesanya posted a series of pictures from his training session with Zuckerberg, one of which showed 'The Last Stylebender' smiling and throwing up the peace sign whilst Zuckerberg was on his back. Adesanya took aim at Musk and his next UFC opponent Dricus Du Plessis by captioning the post: "We both have South Africans to deal with.”
Du Plessis angered Adesanya by claiming that he wants to become the first "real African UFC champion". Adesanya, who was born in Nigeria but currently resides in New Zealand, had an ugly face-off with Du Plessis earlier this month in which he used the N-word several times.
Adesanya later said of the staredown: "Don’t back play the victim… Stand on your original statement. Say it with yo chest n****!! I never discredited you as a real African, you tried to discredit three Real African UFC Champions. You started this, and I will finish this! That’s not a threat, that’s a promise. Gbo gbo yin ma ku!"
Logan Paul and KSI announce new partnership with UFC president Dana WhiteMusk and Zuckerberg have insisted they are serious about stepping foot in the cage and they both spent 90 minutes on the phone with UFC president Dana White to discuss the fight. YouTube boxer Logan Paul has offered to fight for free on the undercard of the event as he called out Paddy Pimblett despite the 40lb weight difference between them.
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White defended criticisms of the fantasy fight being a "gimmick" by insisting that it would be the biggest fight of all-time. Zuckerberg gained an interest in MMA a few years ago after searching for a sport that he could fully focus on. The Meta impressed fight fans by recently winning medals in his first Brazilian jiu-jitsu competition.
Musk has admitted that he is currently out of shape due to a lack of exercise, but he does have combat sports experience having trained Kyokushin karate, and taekwondo in his youth. Musk would have a considerable size advantage over Zuckerberg in the fight as he is around 6'1" whilst Zuckerberg is about 5'7".