Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg

At this point everyone knows what a gimmick fight looks like. It’s a big, showy publicity move that has less to do with integrity and quality than it does attracting attention and creating buzz. Unsurprisingly, in a world like combat sports, where buzz and attention grabbing are the oil that makes all the biggest fights run, there are gimmicks aplenty.

When Dream did their Super Hluk [sic] Grand Prix in 2009, featuring Bob Sapp, Minowman, Hong Man Choi, and Jose Canseco among others, that was a gimmick. When KSW put Popek Monster in a heavyweight fight against promotional star and former World’s Strongest Man Mariusz Pudzianowski, that was a gimmick. And when Bellator brought Kimbo Slice and Dada 5000 together alongside Ken Shamrock vs. Royce Gracie back in 2016, that was a gimmick.

Dana White doesn’t do gimmicks

But, you know who doesn’t do gimmicks? Dana White and the UFC. When the promotion brought 41-year-old boxing legend James Toney into the Octagon against 47-year-old former multiple time champion Randy Couture. That was not a gimmick. That was simply a one-off opportunity to bring casual viewership to the product.

When the UFC signed completely untested and under-trained WWE star CM Punk to a contract and dropped him on PPV against a totally unknown Mickey Gall? Not a gimmick. That was a creative and savvy investment strategy in crossover branding.

So, when Dana White says that he’s going to bring Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg to the UFC for a full contact cage fight, fans have to know that it’s no kind of gimmick. After all, if it were a gimmick, White wouldn’t be doing it.

“This isn’t a gimmick fight,” White wrote in response to fan backlash on his Instagram account. “Gimmick is MMA guys going to Boxing and getting beat. We have seen it already and know how it ends. This is a fight between 2 of the most powerful/richest guys in the world. Who will win? Who has seen this before? NOBODY. It’s also a crossover fight that literally EVERY EVERYONE will watch.”

🚨JUST IN🚨

Dana White has defended his entertaining of a potential fight between Elon Musk & Mark Zuckerberg in the #UFC.

"This isn't a gimmick fight."

"I love doing MASSIVE fights that everyone wanna see. This is the biggest one of all time."

Thoughts, folks? pic.twitter.com/BmE5u9Na0a
— Chisanga Malata (@Chisanga_Malata) June 25, 2023

Why did Dana White sign James Toney?

So if White’s idea of a gimmick is something everyone’s seen and already knows the answer to, then what was the point of putting Toney in the cage against Couture? Even by 2010 everybody knew what it looked like when a boxer who doesn’t do any grappling at all tries MMA. In retrospect, even White doesn’t seem to know what the idea was there.

“To be honest, I don’t know why I did it,” White said of the Toney bout. “There’s been this whole boxing versus mixed martial arts thing forever.”

Before the fight, however, the Slap Fight CEO was a lot more interested in Toney’s abilities, in part because of the man’s deep resume of fighting credentials. To his mind, what made it different than Strikeforce signing Herschel Walker or Dream signing Jose Canseco, was that Toney wasn’t just an athlete, but a combat sports athlete.

“I like James Toney. He’s one of the greatest boxers ever,” White explained back in 2010. “I have tremendous respect for him. He said he wanted to fight in the UFC and I was interested. Now he’s here and I have to figure out what to do with him. What we won’t do is make a freak show out of it. I’d be the first to scream if someone else did that, so I’m not going to do it.”

“Hey, I don’t want this to be seen as a joke, and it’s not like Herschel Walker or Canseco or any of those guys. James Toney is a fighter. The worst thing anyone can ever say to me is that they were watching one of my fights and they changed the channel. That’s why I’ll never put [expletive] fights on.”

Give it to White, if he actually can get these two billionaires to step into the cage together, I doubt anybody’s gonna change the channel. But it will absolutely be guaranteed to be the most “[expletive]” fight in UFC history.

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Dana White backs up Mark Zuckerberg vs. Elon Musk cage fight idea

Although UFC president Dana White has long claimed that his promotion doesn’t do “gimmick fights,” the Power Slap CEO was quick to jump in on this gimmick in a recent interview with TMZ. In a video posted by the website, White claimed he had been in contact with both men and that they were “absolutely” serious about getting a fight booked.

“Talked with Mark and Elon last night, both guys are absolutely dead serious about this,” White told the outlet.

Despite his enthusiasm, however, it has to be assumed that there’s nothing more to this bout than pointless posturing. With the huge amount of money both men are already worth and the massive amount of value in both their reputations as heads of two publicly traded companies, the likelihood that either of them would actually step into a full contact professional MMA fight seems beyond slim.

That said, Mark Zuckerberg recently slid into a regional Jiu Jitsu competition unannounced, where he won gold as one of only two competitors in the Master 1 no-gi white belt division at 149 lbs. Despite that success, the lasting note from the event was one of mild controversy—after Zuckerberg lost a gi match that same day where the referee claimed that the Facebook CEO had been put to sleep by his opponent.

“At no point during the competition was Mark knocked unconscious,” Meta spokesperson Elana Widmann told The Daily Beast. “That never happened.”

If a match of that little consequence was able to trigger Meta into stepping in and making public statements on Zuckerberg’s behalf, it seems nigh impossible to imagine what reaction a potential cage fight might garner.

Dana White’s other gimmick

Of course, that’s not the only gimmick fight that White’s got cooking at the moment. Possibly even further from the scope of reality is the idea of an MMA match between heavyweight boxing champion Tyson Fury and current UFC heavyweight champ Jon Jones. The two men got to chirping at one another on Twitter recently, over claims of who would win what kind of fight in which sport, before the UFC boss jumped in the middle and claimed he was making Fury an official offer.

“I will make Jon Jones vs. Tyson Fury in the Octagon,” Dana White told media at UFC press conference. “And we’ll figure it out. We figured out how to pay Floyd [Mayweather], we’ll figure out how to pay you too, Tyson.”

For his part, Fury seems none to pleased to find himself still in the conversation with Jon Jones and the UFC. The ‘Gypsy King’ isn’t directing his ire at either ‘Bones’ or White, however, instead taking his rage out on Joe Rogan, who really kick-started the ‘what if’ conversation on an episode of his podcast.

“It was actually Joe Rogan, little shitbag, who [started this],” said Fury. “Just out of the blue, there was no talk of me or Jon even fighting. Jon’s a great guy, probably the GOAT of MMA. [Rogan] said, ‘Oh if Tyson Fury goes in a room with Jon Jones he’s going to get absolutely smashed to bits.’ Like, if someone goes in the room with me and it’s no holds barred, you’re going to have to kill me to stop me.”

Category: Elon Musk vs. Mark Zuckerberg