Mark Zuckerberg shares story on how he tried to hide identity for first jiu-jitsu tournament

Mark Zuckerberg has been training MMA striking and grappling for several years, and he eventually had the thought about entering a jiu-jitsu tournament.

The Meta owner recently joined The Joe Rogan Experience to discuss a number of topics, including his combat sports journey and discussed entering his first tournament while trying to hide his identity — at least, for as long as he could.

“I guess I rolled into this tournament and I registered under my first and middle names so people didn’t know who I was. I had like sunglasses and a hat, and I wore a COVID mask. It wasn’t until they called our names to stop onto the mat that I was like, ‘All right,’ took all the stuff off, and the guy [was] like, ‘Uh, what?’ I think he was trying to figure out what was going on.

“Afterwards, his coach was like, ‘I think that was Mark Zuckerberg who just submitted me,’ and the coach is like, ‘No. No way.’ [The other guy] was like, ‘No, I think that was.’ The coach was like, ‘What? You’re fighting Mark Zuckerberg? Get back in there, go fight him,’ and he was like, ‘No, he just submitted me.’”

In 2023, UFC CEO Dana White felt quite confident he could put together a fight between Zuckerberg and Twitter owner Elon Musk, although it never ended up materializing.

It also didn’t help that Zuckerberg suffered a serious injury while training, but it was an important lesson he needed to learn as he went through a vigorous rehabilitation process.

“It’s really important for me for balance,” Zuckerberg explained. “I basically try to train every morning. I’m either doing general fitness, or a kind of MMA [discipline], and do sometimes grappling, sometimes striking, or some both. But it got to the point where I tore my ACL training. At that point, I wasn’t integrated between my weight training and my fighting training, so I think I was probably overdoing it. So now, I’m trying to do this in a cohesive way, which I think will be more sustainable. …

“It definitely takes the edge off. After a couple of hours of doing that in the morning, it’s like nothing else that day is going to stress you out that much. You can just deal with it.”

After the injury, Zuckerberg shared that his wife wanted to make sure that when his ACL healed up, he was right back in the training room as she believed he was better to be around.

Zuckerberg hopes to return to competitive jiu-jitsu as soon as he can, but he’s going to continue getting stronger in different physical aspects, including his neck.

“When I started training, not just jiu-jitsu, but striking, I was like all right, I want to find a way to do this where I don’t hurt my brain,” Zuckerberg said. “I’m going to be running this company for a while, I would like to stay healthy and not take too much damage.

“I think the No. 1 thing you need to do is — well, in addition to having good partners — is have a strong neck, so I take that very seriously.”

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