Mark Zuckerberg trains with UFC champions, preps for ‘cage fight’ with Elon Musk?

Photos posted online show Zuckerberg posing at a training session with Adesanya and Volkanovski with the caption, “This is serious business.”

Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk have been teasing netizens with a ‘cage fight’ for weeks and the Meta CEO’s latest social media post further stoked curiosity about the potential showdown. In an Instagram post, Zuckerberg was seen posing with two renowned Ultimate Fighting Champions (UFC) - Israel Adesanya and Alexander Volkanovski.

Mark Zuckerberg (C) pictured with Israel Adesanya (L) and Alexander Volkanovski. (Instagram)

Earlier, the president of the American mixed martial arts (MMA) promotion company - Dana White - told the New York Times that he would help set up an exhibition event between the tech CEOs and that “they both want to do it.”

According to TMZ, Zuckerberg has been undergoing intense training in the past few days with two of the best modern MMA fighters of this generation. Adesanya, the middleweight champion, and Volkanovski, the featherweight champion, arrived at Zuckerberg's residence in Northern California after Saturday night's UFC 290 showcase in Las Vegas. The three have been diligently training at a gym located in Lake Tahoe, Nevada, as per media reports.

Read: Musk vs Mark: Ahead of much anticipated cage Fight! Twitter killer trends after Threads launch

"No fugazi with Mark. This is serious business," Adesanya captioned the post in a veiled reference to the ‘cage match’ chatter. Zuckerberg responded to the post by thanking the UFC stars for their support and the opportunity to train alongside them.

In February, Zuckerberg shared a video of him and Volkanovski sparring in the Metaverse.

The move comes amid Musk accepting George St-Pierre's invitation to train over Twitter. In a July 3 tweet, the former UFC legend confirmed that he "had a great training session" with Musk.

Musk’s photos of him training with Brazilian Jiu-jitsu black belt Lex Fridman had emerged a few weeks ago, which the internet claimed to be ‘preparation for the match’. The billionaire, who recently launched Twitter’s strongest rival yet - Threads - has trained in Brazilian Jiu-jitsu for some time, securing two medals in his first Jiu-Jitsu tournament in May.

Talk of the cage match between the two broke after Musk and Zuckerberg traded barbs over Musk’s chaotic takeover of Twitter. Sharing a screenshot of Musk's tweet that mentioned being "up for a cage fight", Zuckerberg wrote, “send me location.”

It is unclear if the highly anticipated fight will take place, but tensions run high between the two tech titans as their text-based apps battle it out in the digital marketplace. On the day Threads hit 100 million users, Musk called Zuckerberg a “cuck” and pitched a “literal dick measuring contest”. Musk threatened to sue Meta last week for using Twitter’s "trade secrets and intellectual property" to build Threads by poaching former Twitter employees.