Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg has denied a recent report that he was choked unconscious during a Brazilian jiu-jitsu tournament last month.
Zuckerberg has earned the respect of the combat sports community over the last year after video footage of the Meta CEO surfaced while doing some BJJ training. Since then, Zuckerberg has competed in his first tournament, winning gold and silver. However, it did not come without some early adversity. Speaking with the New York Times, Jose Lucas Costa da Silva, a veteran BJJ practitioner, was overseeing a match Zuckerberg was involved in.
Costa da Silva told the Times that at one point, Zuckerberg was placed in a chokehold and began to snore, signifying that he had lost consciousness. Costa da Silva stopped the match at that point.
The match Mark Zuckerberg lost at his recent Jiu Jitsu tournament! #BJJ #JiuJitsu pic.twitter.com/7ZJ7QqViVN
— ALLIANCE Jiu Jitsu San Francisco (@alliancebjjsf) May 8, 2023
When word got around that the tech billionaire had been slept in his first big tournament, Zuckerberg immediately sought to set the record straight. According to Joseph Bernstein, a writer for the New York Times, Zuckerberg and his coach reached out to the publication and claimed that he never lost consciousness while being choked and that the snoring sounds heard by Costa da Silva were “effortful grunting” noises as he worked to fight out of the position.
“After publishing our story, I heard from both Mark Zuckerberg and his Brazilian jujitsu coach,” Berstein tweeted. “They both insisted that Mr. Zuckerberg had *not* lost consciousness, and the coach said that the referee had mistaken his effortful grunting for snores.”
UPDATE: After publishing our story, I heard from both Mark Zuckerberg and his Brazilian jujitsu coach. They both insisted that Mr. Zuckerberg had *not* lost consciousness, and the coach said that the referee had mistaken his effortful grunting for snores: https://t.co/xicWVdSfke
— Joe Bernstein (@Bernstein) June 3, 2023
Needless to say, Twitter users were less than convinced, suggesting that Mark Zuckerberg’s fractured ego and an unlimited supply of cash are being used to rewrite his own history. Something he has done plenty of times. Unfortunately, in this instance, there is video evidence of what went down.
To his credit, Zuckerberg did walk out of the tournament with gold and silver medals which is far better than what the average person could accomplish. For that, we commend ‘The Zuck’, but would like to stress that there is no shame in losing from time to time. It happens to the best of us.
