Morning Report: Dana White invites Mark Zuckerberg to compete in UFC BJJ

We never got Mark Zuckerberg vs. Elon Musk in the octagon, but we might still get Zuckerberg in the UFC. Sort of.

On Wednesday, the UFC begins a knew era of promotion with UFC BJJ 1, it’s first committed foray into the world of competitive grappling. While the UFC has previously held Fight Pass Invitational events, UFC BJJ 1 will crown champions in three weight classes — bantamweight, lightweight, and welterweight — and kick start a full court press to take over grappling like it did MMA.

“I think so,” UFC CEO Dana White told TMZ Sports when asked if the goal was to make the biggest grappling matches possible. “And to educate people on the sport of jiu-jitsu, who these guys are, and to sort of organize it. When you think about it, if you know anything about jiu-jitsu, there’s tons of tournaments that go on all over the world, there’s big ones, there’s real money involved, et cetera et cetera.

“We’re gonna come in and say, ‘You can be considered one of the best in the world, but you can come fight the best at the UFC and win a world title. You’ll be a world champion, everybody will be ranked, and put some structure to it.”

But White envisions UFC BJJ as more than just a platform for the best grapplers in the world, he’s also open to it being a spot to showcase some of the biggest matches possible with competitors who aren’t necessarily world class.

“Let me tell you something, there’s a lot of other people out there, too,” White said. “There’s actors and athletes. You’d be surprised. Zuckerberg has competed in tournaments. Mario Lopez competes in tournaments. Tom Hardy competes in tournaments. This is a spot, anybody could come and compete here in jiu-jitsu.”

White, famously, attempted to put on an MMA bout between Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, when the two were publicly feuding. Ultimately, nothing came from that other than a T-shirt, but White did end up with a spot on the board of Zuckerberg’s company Meta. As such, White says he and Zuckerberg frequently talk fights, and that he’d love to finally get the Facebook founder into the UFC.

“Yeah, we talk a lot about fighting, obviously,” White said. “If Mark keeps training and competing, he could literally come here and fight in UFC BJJ. 100 percent. Tom Hardy, Mario Lopez, and many, many other actors that are really good jiu-jitsu guys that nobody knows about.”

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Farewell.

But what about the fighting part?

Get well soon.

Congratulations!

Honestly, the idea of Zuck vs. Elon in MMA was always stupid. A grappling match makes way more sense. And legitimately would be a pretty big deal for UFC BJJ to get something like that up and build with.

This is the world we’re in.

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