Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg really, really doesn’t want you to think he was choked unconscious during a recent Brazilian jiu-jitsu match.
For readers only aware of Zuckerberg’s professional life, such as a wild pivot to the metaverse and election disinformation, the Facebook founder has gotten slightly yoked and really into BJJ, the thinking man’s mid-life crisis sport.
A recent article in the New York Times decided to analyze his sporting habits, but has been shrouded in controversy as a BJJ referee said he oversaw a match where Zuckerberg was forced into going night night (they don’t mention what the exact choke hold was.).
“José Lucas Costa da Silva, a veteran Brazilian jujitsu fighter who refereed one of Mr. Zuckerberg’s matches, said that he halted the bout after he heard Mr. Zuckerberg start to snore, a sign of someone who has passed out in a choke hold,” reads the line that so offended Zuckerberg. The section goes on to say the Zuck was “a good sport” about the whole situation.
Zuckerberg immediately did a full-court press to deny this happened and deployed not just his press people but his jiu-jitsu coach—an absolute killer, by the way—Dave Camarillo. Unsurprisingly, Zuckerberg’s denial of being choked unconscious in the competition begot the Streisand Effect and resulted in headlines like “Mark Zuckerberg REALLY doesn’t want you to know he was choked out by an Uber engineer” and “Do You Have Video of Mark Zuckerberg Getting Choked Out?”
Do you have video of Mark Zuckerberg getting choked out to share? We’d love to hear from you. You can contact Mack at mack.lamoureux@vice.com.
So, we here at VICE News decided to get in on the action and thought, who better to investigate a man possibly being choked unconscious for sport, than someone who gets choked on the regular during sport? That would be me of course.
Like Big Zuck, I’m a white belt who has been training for a little over a year now. I’m fully obsessed with BJJ and like Zuckerberg, I recently had a good showing at a tournament (4-0 and two golds, not to brag.) I also happen to be an investigative journalist.
This Very Serious Investigation is going to start in the same place as all good investigations, the basics. So what do we know? We know Zuckerberg has been training over a year now (as he told Joe Rogan in a podcast last August), is a white belt, and he competed at the BJJ Tour Silicon Valley tournament in early May. Zuckerberg participated in the adult division at 155 pounds under the name Mark Eliott (his middle name.) We can see that he only competed in both gi and no gi (a gi is a traditional wear for jiu-jitsu, the big thick uniform). In no-gi (where you typically wear shorts and a tight sports top) he competed against only one opponent, and in gi, he was in a bracket that had four people. The tournament information does not have the results of individual matches.
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