Two-time UFC bantamweight champion Dominick Cruz believes a fight between social media moguls Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg would be a huge moment for the expansion of mixed martial arts around the world.
Media outlets have been abuzz ever since Dana White told TMZ Sports that the billionaire tech gurus were ‘100% serious’ about stepping inside the Octagon following a casual cage match challenge issued by the Tesla Motors CEO. Rumored to take place at UFC 300 next year, Musk vs. Zuckerberg is being both praised and criticized, by fans and fighters alike with many suggesting that a fight between two untrained celebrities would do nothing, but hurt the sport’s still developing reputation.
Speaking with ex-UFC heavyweight Brendan Schaub on his podcast The Schaub Show, Dominick Cruz had a different take on the potential freakshow fight and why it would likely live up to its hype as the biggest fight in the history of the world.
“This goes back to the DNA in all of us as humans. We all have fighting in us,” Cruz said. “Now, with the internet, it changes the fight game because the fight game can be seen anywhere. Before it had to be a live event so the athletes had to be worth the live event and worth bringing everybody together. But on the internet, nobody has to leave their house. Nobody has to do anything. So having the live event just needs to be entertaining people, not an entertaining fight.
“And that’s what’s interesting about this. Elon Musk are two people who are… People are more fascinated with these human beings than most people in the world,” he continued. “Not because of fighting, but because of what they create. How they seem to be on A side versus A side, or people have attached to them to put them in a box on the A side. Once you create two sides, you have a competition.
“It’s win and lose. Once you create a competition with people that everybody is interested in, and then you add the internet to it, it no longer needs to be two fighters. It just needs to be two entertaining people that can bring everybody together.”
Mark Zuckerberg sent out his first tweet in over 11 years just to troll Elon Musk and Twitter 😂😂 pic.twitter.com/lB6OarsFxx
— Somalianbae🇸🇴🇰🇪 (@adan_zamuh) July 6, 2023
Dominick Cruz Believes Musk vs. Zuckerberg Would Be Huge for the Sport of MMA
Dominick Cruz also believes that the attention generated by Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg competing inside the Octagon will be massive for the UFC and mixed martial arts as a whole.
“I really believe that those guys doing this is huge for MMA. I really do. They didn’t say they were going to have a boxing match. They said they were going to have an MMA match and Zuckerberg is practicing grappling. What was the last big celebrity that focused on grappling and not boxing? It’s unprecedented that we’ve seen people at this level push MMA and not boxing. MMA, not karate. MMA, not sitting at a [Detroit] Pistons game.
“It’s a big deal. We need those guys talking about us in my opinion. We need them pushing us. They are some of the highest political figures in the world and politics is leading the world right now. It’s not always going in a perfect direction. I think letting the world hash that out on a public forum with two people who don’t fight and can’t fight, it’s almost therapeutic.”
Despite the insistence of all parties involved, Musk vs. Zuckerberg still feels like a fever dream that we can’t quite wake up from for dedicated MMA fans. But for the rest of the world, the billionaire beatdown is sure to bring the kind of attention to the sport that no other fight in the world could.
