Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta Platforms and the founder of Facebook, has now competed in and actually won a BJJ tournament. Not only did Zuckerberg have the nerve to step on the mats in the first place, but he actually showed a decent amount of skill too by the time the day was finished. He was able to take home a pair of medals in both gi and no gi Jiu-Jitsu, both of them being in the white belt master 2 lightweight division. He represented Guerilla Jiu-Jitsu at the tournament too, the same team that was founded and is currently run by veteran Judo and BJJ black belt Dave Camarillo.
Competition has become increasing popular among celebrities who train BJJ but as the king of social media, Zuckerberg is still among the most famous people who’ve ever stepped on the mats. While it might be surprising to see him enter a tournament with his level of notoriety, Mark Zuckerberg has actually been pretty open about his love for both BJJ and MMA in the past. While he personally has only been training in the sport for a relatively short amount of time, Facebook has been encouraging it’s employees to train in BJJ for quite a while. Images even surfaced a few years ago of the company-branded gis and rashguards that they had given out.
It remains to be seen whether or not Zuckerberg will continue competing in BJJ tournaments, but he definitely seems to have enjoyed his first experience of competition. This could be a one-off or he might be starting to embark on a journey similar to film star Tom Hardy, who has now become known for his frequent appearances at BJJ competitions across the UK. Either way, it’s worth giving Zuckerberg some credit for having the courage to step in to a tournament anyway as that’s something that not every Jiu-Jitsu practitioner is capable of doing.
Mark Zuckerberg announced the news that he had competed in a BJJ tournament in a recent post to his official Instagram account:
