Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg Jack Gruber-USA TODAY NETWORK

UFC champ favors Mark Zuckerberg over Elon Musk in potential fight

Alexander Volkanovski is the No. 2-ranked pound-for-pound fighter in the UFC and the No. 1 featherweight fighter in the world, so he knows a thing or two about mixed martial arts.

Which is why Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has to feel pretty good about himself after Volkanovski expressed that he liked Zuckerberg in a rumored fight against Twitter CEO Elon Musk.

“He’s well-rounded,” Volkanovski said on “The MMA Hour.” “He does it all. He does the striking and then he does the grappling. I think he’s complete — obviously he does a little bit more, he’s probably a lot more competitive on the ground. You’ve got to be a little bit more careful on the feet, especially with these clever guys, they don’t want to be sparring and getting punched in the head, especially with the brains that they have. So I think they’re going to do a lot more grappling, so he’s going to have a lot more experience grappling, because that’s something that he can obviously be a bit more competitive with.”

Volkanovski, who has offered to train and corner Zuckerberg should the fight with Musk ever materialize, has seen his MMA skills firsthand. The UFC featherweight champion sparred with Zuckerberg at the Meta headquarters last year and was seemingly impressed with his striking ability.

Although the 5-foot-7, 155-pound Zuckerberg is markedly smaller than the 6-foot-1, 190-pound Musk, he does hold the advantage in MMA experience, having competed in his first Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu competition in May. Zuckerberg came away from that event winning gold and silver medals.

“We know he’s already competed in jiu-jitsu, and he’s a pretty athletic,” Volkanovski added. “He gets in there and I guess loves challenging himself, and this is going to be a challenge — something new, something exciting. And I think it could happen. Get me on that card though. I want to be on that card. I’ll help corner and be on that card as well.”

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