← Pablo Torre Finds Out
Pablo Torre Finds Out
Why Mark Zuckerberg and the Tech Bros Are So Obsessed with Mixed Martial Arts
00:50:36
Loading summary
Transcript187 lines
- [00:01]
A
Welcome to Pablo Torre Finds Out. I am Pablo Torre. And today we're gonna find out what this sound is.
- [00:07]
B
This guy walks into the gym with a hat on and an N95 mask, and I swear, I thought this guy was dying. I thought this guy just wanted to do Jiu Jitsu on his final days.
- [00:22]
A
Right after this ad. You're listening to Giraffe Kings Network. All right, Cortez, I'm going to begin by jeopardizing all the goodwill we have built by bragging about something. That we're a top three podcast, not just on Spotify, but on Apple Podcasts. That is extraordinarily accurate. But no different brag. I wanted to brag about a different number because there are now approximately, like, 3 billion people on Facebook, right? At Harvard, I was Facebook member number 199. Wait, wait, you went to Harvard?
- [01:08]
C
Okay.
- [01:08]
A
I've never heard you mention what school you were. You're getting in the way of my story now or. Cause there's a story here. Aren't you and, like, Mark Zuckerberg, like, boys from Harvard? No, No, I am not. I'm not. I know many assholes from Harvard. I'm not friends with all of them. You're friends with a lot of assholes from Harvard, like, already. The point is that I am not friends with Mark Zuckerberg. Actually, the reason I say this is because I have known so many stories about mark Zuckerberg for 15 years now, back when there were 200 people on Facebook, right? That the fact that he has successfully rebranded himself, right, As a sports story, as an athlete, as the $100 billion face of Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Now, Zuckerberg and Jiu Jitsu is like, you with your calves, okay? Like, isn't Zuck shirtless all the time now? When I see him doing all this stuff, it makes me want to vomit. And I don't think people react that way to my cabs. We will also find out about that. But the point is. The point is I vomited when I saw. No, I feel. Cortez. A, arousal is not the same as vomiting. B, it makes me feel crazy to see him shirtless on boats with MMA fighters. And this whole Elon Musk thing. I mean, he wanted to fight Elon Musk, didn't he? Like, that's. That's been a thing for months now. But here's the thing. Elon Musk has also, in fact, been going on and on about how he's been training in Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. Like, Tech Bros as A whole are for some reason obsessed with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu in specific, which is why I became obsessed. Well, hold on, hold on. What? You know, I'm a betting guy. Like I was. I was hitting the parlays this weekend. Weren't people betting on Zuck and Elon? Like that was the thing too. Zuck was the big favorite. He's the alpha again. He's an Alpha. But what I have become obsessed with watching this is why. Why are all of these tech bros. Why is all of Silicon Valley apparently obsessed with one specific martial art? And in the process of trying to figure this out, I arrived at the legend of the man who choked out Mark Zuckerberg. Somebody choked out Zuck. Well, so legally speaking, I should say that Zuckerberg denies that this ever happened.
- [03:22]
C
Right.
- [03:23]
A
But we sent a real live Pablo Torre finds out, correspondent Cortez, journalist to find out, because the guy who allegedly choked out Mark Zuckerberg agreed to talk to us. Oh, my God. And so my friend Jay Caspian Kang, documentarian, author, one of the great writers in America at the New Yorker, he agreed to go out into the field and bring us back the truth, to do the journalism that you wouldn't do, but to do us the favor of doing journalism for this show. Excited journalism. So, Jay, I, I want to explain why I asked you why I assigned you this story. And part of it's because I regard you as both a cultural critic in a real way who sort of is unafraid of saying rude things about people who are very powerful. Also, I know you as a, as truly a degenerate sports gambler who knows a lot about combat sports, who I've covered, like, fights with before in Vegas. So you know that world. But Brazilian Jiu jitsu, this is where I am embarrassed. As an Asian American, I know so little about it. I knew so little about it when I assigned this story to you and you graciously accepted the assignment. So what is Brazilian Jiu Jitsu? BJJ what makes it distinct as a discipline from other martial arts?
- [05:07]
C
You can start with some of the history of it, right? Which is the Gracie family came into the beginning of the Ultimate Fighting Championship and they started dominating and people couldn't really figure out why.
- [05:21]
B
Brazilian Jiu Jitsu is a form of self defense martial arts derived from the original Jiu Jitsu, which came from Japan. And it was taken to Brazil by a Japanese master who taught a group of brothers.
- [05:36]
C
The Gracie family is the most important.
- [05:38]
D
Family in the history of martial arts.
- [05:40]
B
These brothers focused more on the Ground aspect of Jiu jitsu, chokes, submission holds, it's a very strategic way to fight on the ground.
- [05:52]
C
They're like, why are these little dudes from Brazil who. They don't really look like they're that strong. They don't move. Like some of the, I don't know, karate guys, where it's like beautiful and fluid and they're doing these crazy kicks. They're not strong like some of the wrestlers, or they're not built like some of the other people who, like, would go in as brawlers or whatever. And yet, like, nobody can deal with this.
- [06:17]
A
Out of the red corner. Ho. Gracie.
- [06:21]
C
There goes Ho.
- [06:22]
A
He looks like he's going for the back. There's the tap, there's the tap. Ho.
- [06:28]
C
Actually had him in a choke from the back, and he tapped.
- [06:32]
A
And that is a good back choke. One of the fundamental strategies of Gracie.
- [06:36]
C
Jiu Jitsu, the Gracies, they started gyms all around, like, everywhere. And then you have people learning this discipline and figuring out what it is. And I think that one of the things that I was curious about from the beginning was just like, okay, well, what is the actual cheat code here?
- [06:55]
A
Right?
- [06:55]
C
People have been wrestling forever. Judo exists. All sorts of grappling forms of martial arts existing. Why was this one so dominant? I think that it is something about the fluidity of it and then just the efficiency of it, that you have almost an infinite amount of permutations within there that you can learn and get better. And like, I don't know, like, I think for the people who are true believers in it, the practitioners of it, and then the people who buy into the gospel of it, that there is a. It's not quite religious. It just feels almost like data analytics within sports, right? That. Not in terms of the evidence based or whatever, but just in terms of the belief that people have in it, where they say nothing else is as good. Everyone else is stupid. If you're practicing Taekwondo or if you're doing karate, that's just stupid. It's a waste of time right now. They might say it in more polite terms, but that's sort of what they mean, right?
- [08:04]
A
They've optimized, they've surveyed the data and they came to the most optimal conclusion.
- [08:11]
C
Yeah, it is the corner three of. It's either, you can call it the corner three or it's a three run, home run. That's right.
- [08:21]
A
The three true outcomes comes to UFC.
- [08:26]
C
Of, Of martial arts. And do I think that that's true?
- [08:31]
A
Yeah, it's.
- [08:32]
C
I think it's probably true. Right. I do think it's the most efficient way in which a normal person can spend their time if they want to learn how to fight. But I do think that a lot of the people who are into it these days have the same sort of optimization, slash efficiency mindset when they go into it. I talked to this guy, Dave Camarillo, who's, he's a bit of a legendary trainer. He works in San Jose, which obviously is right in the armpit of Silicon Valley. And he had some very interesting things to say. The first and most interesting part was that he just said, yeah, this is happening. This group of people are very into this now because you think that this is true, but you don't ever know if it's actually true, if the actual numbers of people coming into a gym are actually going to reflect what you think is happening. But yeah, he said that this was happening. And secondly, he said that, you know, there was a way in which the on ramp into enjoying and feeling satisfied through Jiu Jitsu was less steep than other than other martial arts and really other sports.
- [09:40]
D
I think Jiu jitsu, the reason why it's becoming intellectualized, if you will. You know, you're having many people from different fields jump into it is because of how user friendly it can be. A lot of kids are doing Jiu jitsu, a lot of big tech people are jumping into Jiu jitsu. There's no art like it.
- [10:04]
A
Well, look, you live in the Bay Area. You're using words like permutations and efficiency to describe what is special as, like, the competitive advantage to bjj. And so let's be honest about this. The reason why I wanted to do this story is obviously because the biggest big tech who fell in love with BJJ is Mark Zuckerberg. And I remember listening to Zuckerberg on Joe Rogan's podcast, Jay, in which he went on one of these monologues. He sounded like a guy who was talking about how he just discovered his favorite drug. Like, after graduating college.
- [10:40]
E
I trained with this guy, Dave Camarillo.
- [10:42]
C
I know Dave.
- [10:43]
E
Yeah. And guerrilla Jiu jitsu.
- [10:44]
A
Yeah.
- [10:45]
E
So. And he's awesome.
- [10:47]
C
He's great.
- [10:47]
E
Yeah. Super nice guy. And, um, I, I feel like I'm learning a ton. And I don't know, I mean, it's, it really is the best sport. I, I, I don't. The question isn't how did I get into it, it's how did I not know about it until just now?
- [10:59]
A
From, from, from, like, from the, from.
- [11:04]
E
The very first session that I did like five minutes in, I was like, where has this been my whole life?
- [11:12]
A
And so when you talk to the BJJ people who he's worked with, how do they describe Zuckerberg?
- [11:19]
C
They say he's very hard worker. Right. They say that he cares about it a lot, that he is extremely serious about jiu jitsu and, you know, mixed martial arts in general.
- [11:33]
D
Mark, as a student, is one of the best students I've ever had. He's extremely disciplined. We never miss training. It is non negotiable that he's going to be training. Outside of that, I think the best word to describe him with his training is appreciative. Every day he's appreciative. You know, he's learning every single day and that hard work pays off. So he's tough and he's serious.
- [11:58]
C
He probably does take it extremely seriously. I mean, this is a guy who spent, who every year has some goal, right? One of them was like, he wouldn't eat any meat that he didn't kill. Do you remember that? Right. And then here's like he would take all these photos with Sweet Baby Ray's in the background.
- [12:13]
A
We got it. The Sweet Baby Ray's super cut. We're about to play that right now.
- [12:18]
E
Sweet Baby Ray's barbecue sauce that is going on the ribs.
- [12:22]
B
Sweet Baby Ray.
- [12:23]
E
Sweet Baby Ray's. Sweet Baby Ray's. Sweet Baby Ray's is very good. Sweet Baby Rays. Sweet Baby Rays. We have just applied the Sweet Baby Ray's. Sweet Baby Ray's Sweet Baby Rays. Maybe throw some Sweet Baby Ray's on the ribs and, and take it from there.
- [12:38]
C
Look, I don't know what it's like to have a billion, several billion dollars, but I would hope that if I had several billion dollars that I would try and challenge myself in ways in which, you know, that would be intellectually and physically interesting to me.
- [12:55]
A
Right.
- [12:56]
C
And that seems to be what he's doing to a certain extent. And so it doesn't surprise me that everyone said he's a very hard worker.
- [13:03]
A
What I get from your description and your reporting on this is that there's an earnestness, like there's an earnestness to Mark Zuckerberg trying to do this thing that he became a fanboy of via the Internet.
- [13:16]
C
Right. But I think it's true of everyone who does Brazilian Jiu jitsu that at least that I've spoken to, that there is a. There is a buy in that is unusual.
- [13:26]
E
And I've just introduced a bunch of My friends to it. And that's been really fun because now it's like, we train together and we just, like, wrestle together and just. I don't know, there's like, a certain intensity to it that I like, and it's sort of. I don't know, maybe it's like there's this cultural thing where maybe a lot of people haven't considered it, but I've had 100% hit rate of introducing friends to it and converting them to people who now train. Every single person who I've kind of shown it to is like, this is amazing. This is, like, obviously how I should be training and working out.
- [14:01]
C
The extent to which people gush about it, you know, at least for a cynic, would raise a lot of flags, right? Like, you would be like. Like, this seems a little bit weird. Why are you so. Why do you.
- [14:13]
A
Are you performing earnestness as opposed to actually being in it? But this is. But this is why, like, the little tech people in this picture are interesting to me, the people that you talk to, because, like, I get the sense that, okay, Mark Zuckerberg, is this MMA tech, bro, in a real way. But the larger Venn diagram between BJJ and Silicon Valley, beyond, like, the famous people. What does that Venn diagram look like as you now understand it?
- [14:37]
C
Well, it appears that a lot of people are going into these gyms now, right? That the Brazilian jiu jitsu gyms are all extremely crowded, that there are tons of people in them, and that. That. That a lot of them are tech workers. I talked to this guy, Ricky, who lives in Berkeley. He was telling me, like, it's like a networking opportunity for some. Some people because there's so many tech workers in there.
- [15:05]
F
There are at least at my gym. I'm in Berkeley, so I'm in a. Essentially a college town. It's not a bad place to network. I have, you know, I've gotten connections.
- [15:14]
C
What type of networking do you. You're, like, grabbing each other, rolling around on the ground. You're like, hey, listen.
- [15:21]
F
I mean, almost literally that. Yeah, you're like. It is almost literally that you could be rolling with someone at a lower intensity. And you're like, hey, what do you do for work again? And they're like, I'm an. I'm an account executive at ServiceNow.
- [15:34]
A
You're like, oh, really?
- [15:35]
F
I'm. I'm actually in sales. I'm trying to, like, do, like. I actually have gotten introductions at work, and I've. I've shared, you know, tech tech insider information or whatever you want to call it, SaaS metrics during Jiu Jitsu classes.
- [15:50]
A
Give me the visuals on Ricky. What does Ricky look like? How big is he? What's his, what's his stature? Physically?
- [15:57]
C
Ricky was about 5 foot. He said he was 5 7, about 150 I think. You know, he had sort of big hair, very energetic, bright eyed guy. I actually liked him quite a bit.
- [16:11]
A
The profile, the Scouting report on Ricky 57150 is about Mark Zuckerberg's like that's about Zuck height and weight. And the idea that Ricky got into this because there is some aspect of being a small guy, right?
- [16:24]
C
It's similar to why Steph Curry is very popular among kids or Kyrie is very popular among kids because you see a smaller person doing the impossible and beating these gigantic NBA players and competing with them and out competing them and you think that you can do it. So Ricky's 57150, right? I'm, I'm, I'm not much taller than Ricky, but I am, you know, a few inches taller than Ricky, but I'm three quarters. I'm way bigger than Ricky, you know, in terms of size. And if I saw Ricky, I would just be like, yeah. And I don't have these thoughts walking around, I promise you. But you know, if I did, I'd be like, he's.
- [17:12]
A
If I walked around the world calculating which people I came across, I could curb stomp.
- [17:18]
C
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I would pick Ricky. I only do that at journalism conferences. But if Ricky, Ricky would, would end me, I would have no chance against Ricky, right? Like basically anybody that you and I know in common would have no chance against Ricky. And that's gotta be. You have to feel like Superman, right? Like you found the secret. It's, that's how people discuss it. That's how it's thought about. It's a secret. And that's what Mark Zuckerberg was saying, right, in that interview with Rogan. He's saying, oh, why did I not know about this? Right? They talk about it like it's this secret knowledge that they have accessed and now their small stature no longer matters, right? It doesn't matter anymore. Like in the most primal encounter that they can have, which is a physical fight with somebody, that the old things that seem to matter to them that used to affect their psychology in some sort of way are now erased, right? And now actually they're going to kick your ass.
- [18:18]
F
I've had direct reports who are a little bigger than me be like, I could definitely Take you in a fight. And I'm like, oh, if there was ever a situation, like, if the scenario just. I fantasize, I probably once a week, this lives rent free in my brain. Once a week I think about, like, oh, man, if Conor knew, because Conor was talking all that smack, like, he could. Like he could do anything. Like, I just know he couldn't. But in what scenario would I ever throw down, you know, actually end up grappling. One of my direct reports interviews with.
- [18:48]
C
Connor, we're like, connor, listen. That's his.
- [18:51]
F
That's his real name too. So if he listens to this, shout out to Connor, who thinks I wouldn't armbar him 10 times in five minutes.
- [18:57]
A
I want to square the circle of like, okay, tech bros, tiny nerds by reputation. Also people who are hyper competitive, right, who have these big egos. And you're describing the language of the dreaming of victory. But then I want to get to the reality of what it's like to actually try to be good at this. To, like, actually start training in this. Because what's the learning curve like? Like, what's it like to actually try to do this in reality?
- [19:23]
C
In the beginning, yeah, I was confused. You know, it's a bit of a conflicting message because everyone says it's very user friendly, but then everyone also says you spend the first two years getting your ass kicked. And I was like, that doesn't seem very user friendly to me. If someone was like, oh, you know, like, this thing's really easy for two years. You're just gonna get choked out all the time and have to roll on the ground with a bunch of sweaty people. I'd be like, that sounds not user friendly. You know, like, I'll avoid his karate. I just break some boards. I feel great about myself. That seems more useful. Yeah, exactly. But in this one, like, I have to try really hard. People get in incredible shape because the exertion of wrestling and fighting and pulling and moving is so high. And so I don't think it's that user friendly, but it is explained that way. But the way in which the one thing that is universal across the board, people say, is that it's the most humbling thing they've ever done that you like. I will say that if I put myself in and I saw Ricky and I was like, ricky's not a problem for me. He's not a threat. I have assessed the situation. Ricky's not a threat. And we were at a Brazilian jiu jitsu class and he just, within 20 seconds, had me in a choke, Right? Yeah, that would be humbling. And I think that that's the experience for most people, that they try and make it so that you understand from the very beginning that there is something else going on here than athleticism, physical strength and like being a tough guy. Right. That the technique and the knowledge is what you have to respect and that I think once people are kind of buy into that, then like, they're like, okay, how do I get to the next level? How do I get to the next level? How do I get to the next level?
- [21:11]
A
When you talk to the people who coach and train Zuckerberg, how explicit are they about the idea that, look, this is not just psychoanalysis? Like, this is real. Like, you get embarrassed. And that's part of why this is good.
- [21:25]
C
This is what Dave Camerillo told me.
- [21:28]
D
I think it's really important to be embarrassed, to be humiliated. Not on a day to day basis, but I mean, that's. I believe in spectrums. So you're being embarrassed on one side, then you're having triumph and victory on the other. If you don't have all of those levels and degrees in that spectrum, I think you're deficient in life. Somebody could be a weightlifter or a soccer player or somebody who's really fit. They come in here and maybe they're training with someone 30, 40 pounds lighter than them and they're just getting totally wrapped up and there's nothing they can do. And that is such a good shock to their system. To me, it's extremely healthy part of their life.
- [22:10]
C
I think everyone in Brazilian jiu jitsu says that, right? Like that it's good to feel that humiliation because you understand at some point you won't. Right. But that it takes a lot of work to get there. It's a good life lesson, I think. Or they see it as a life lesson. I mean, Ricky in his younger days, we should say so not to embarrass him, but this was like 10 years ago, when he was in his early 20s. He wrote like almost like a 10 rules of life, you know, like a Jordan Peterson type of treatise about Brazilian churches.
- [22:40]
A
Where did he write it?
- [22:41]
C
He posted on LinkedIn. I love Ricky and so I don't want to say anything.
- [22:48]
A
Ricky is just everything that I imagined Ricky to be.
- [22:52]
C
Oh, man. I was, I was very. I was. I was. I was a huge supporter because I was just like, look, he's so earnest that it's hard to dislike anything he's doing. But yeah, he. He made the most LinkedIn. LinkedIn post of all time, right? Which was just like, how does Brazilian Jiu Jitsu set you up for success? You know?
- [23:09]
F
Point one, respecting the hierarchy, embracing the grind, constantly evolving, understanding how to be an independent contributor and a team player.
- [23:18]
C
And the whole thing was kind of like, you know, you. You're. You're on the grind, right? Like, it was very much a Silicon Valley type of, you know, take your losses, deal with. Deal with adversity, that type of stuff. And I don't know, I think that there is a way in which you can really believe that that is quite powerful.
- [23:37]
A
Wait, so what does someone like Ricky think of Mark Zuckerberg? How much is he a topic of conversation in Ricky's network?
- [23:45]
C
I think it's hard to be in Silicon Valley and practicing Jiu Jitsu and not think about this because it was such a huge news story and that it is quite surprising in a lot of ways to see this guy who really only shows his face, like, you know, in weird Instagram videos where he's like, hey, guys, you know, or when.
- [24:01]
A
His face is covered by, like, a pound of SBF 9 million.
- [24:06]
C
Yeah, exactly. Like, hey, guys, you know, we're connecting the world. And I'm sorry, but 40% of you have been laid off, right? Like, oh, he's. He's almost like a floating head at this point, right?
- [24:25]
A
Just because he's a big Zordon from Power Rangers Energy around when Mark Zuckerberg appears, it's just like, okay, let's listen to the giant disembodied head of the guy who actually rules our planet.
- [24:34]
C
Yes, exactly. And so, like, you don't even really know what his body looks like. And so he. I think that when that person starts showing up at gyms, right, and, like, competing, of course it's going to be the talk of everything, right? It's like, almost like if. Oh, I don't know, it's like if, like, Barack Obama showed up at open mic night at, like, the Comedy Cellar in Greenwich Village or something, you know, he's like. He just starts firing up jokes about, About. About. About Joe Manchin, you know, he's like, well, let me tell you, did you.
- [25:15]
A
Guys hear Obama's tight five? He had a real tight five on. On the West Virginia Senators seat.
- [25:23]
C
Yeah, I got a type 5 on Kirsten Cinema, and then I got a. I got another 10 on Nantucket. You know why Martha's Vineyard is better than Nantucket? All right, let's go. You know, it's. It's similar to that it's like seeing somebody who. Who in a lot of ways is almost a mythic figure show up. And then he's like, starting at the bottom, right? And of course it's. It's gonna appeal to them. Ricky told me that he would. It took a lot to get it out of him, but at first he was like, oh, I think we would do okay. You know, he would give. He would present challenges. I was like, come on, Ricky. And he was like, I would crush him.
- [25:59]
F
Fine. I'm calling you out, Zuck. I'm calling you out, Zuck. I would. I would handle the Zuck. No problem.
- [26:06]
C
Okay. I'm good.
- [26:07]
F
I had a direct report of mine. Asked me once, he said, like a few months ago, Zuck competed and lost. And he's like, hey, so I saw Zuckerberg competed in the Bay Area and lost. Was it you who beat him? And I was like, no, it wasn't me.
- [26:22]
A
All right, Jay. So after the break, we're gonna find the guy who actually did.
- [26:30]
B
First of all, I was like, I can't believe I just won. I was like, cool. You know? And second of all, I was like, damn, I just beat a billionaire.
- [26:45]
A
So, Jay, the guy who actually did beat Mark Zuckerberg, the guy we've been talking about, the guy we've been talking around this whole time, who is he?
- [26:55]
C
His name is Jeff Ibrahim. He's 41, and he works at Kaiser Oakland at a hospital, and he works in the storeroom. Right. So what he does, he sort of orders parts. He said he moves pallets. He's in the union, and he works from 4am to about 2pm so, you know, like, this is like in the Bay Area. It's like, you know, about as close to sort of typical union guy as you get. Right around last year, I would say around. He said around Thanksgiving, his nine year old son Jameson got a little bit bored with the karate that he was taking. I really tried something else. Yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so Jameson and Jeff decided they would try Brazilian Jiu Jitsu. There was a gym nearby, and they went in and Jameson really took to it. And Jeff, because he wanted to spend time with Jameson, this is a great way for them to spend time together. Just started getting into it too.
- [27:52]
A
All right, so just to recap Jeff's place in this ecosystem, Jeff is a dad, a union guy, works the graveyard shift at a hospital. He is the one who finds himself in this tournament competing against Mark Zuckerberg. How does he find himself in that specific situation? That dude fighting again, the Arguably the most powerful person on earth.
- [28:15]
C
The reason why he was down there was because his kid was competing, right? Jameson was in a tournament, and he's like, well, I'm down here, I might as well just enter it myself. And so it's a four person tournament. There are four entrants. He doesn't know who the other three entrants are. And so in his first match, he wrestles or he. He's. He's up against some dude and he beats him, right? And he's, like, pumped about it, right? And then he's like, all right, it's a four person tournament. Now I'm in the finals. Who. Who am I gonna fight in the finals? And that's when the doors open and a man about his size, wearing an N95 mask, sort of with a small entourage, walks through the door, walks through the doors.
- [29:00]
A
Jeff's response upon seeing this literally masked man is what?
- [29:06]
B
He says, this guy walks into the gym with a hat on and an N95 mask. And I swear, I thought this guy was. Was dying. I thought this guy just wanted to do jiu jitsu on his final days.
- [29:21]
C
Why?
- [29:22]
B
I'm like, dude who walks in here with like, you know, with a mask on, and it's like, man, maybe he's really sick.
- [29:29]
C
Is he dying? Like, is this, is this his make a wish wish is to, like, be in a wrestling match?
- [29:38]
A
So Jeff thinks, okay, this, this, this is a man using his. His last breath on an MMA fight. And at what point does he realize that this man is not on his deathbed? This man is. Is. Is Mark. It's Mark Zuckerberg.
- [29:56]
C
Well, there's like a rustle through the crowd, right? And. And people start whispering about it.
- [30:03]
B
All of a sudden you just hear everyone like, ah, it's meta. It's meta. And I'm like, what are they talking about? And I look, hey, it's that guy that. With a mask on. I'm like, he does look like Mark Zuckerberg.
- [30:14]
C
Why.
- [30:15]
B
Why would he be here, though? And then I started thinking about it. I was like, I remember he was on Joe Rogan. He was talking about how he's really into mma.
- [30:24]
E
From the very first session that I did, like five minutes in, I was like, where has this been my whole life?
- [30:32]
C
At some point, I think somebody comes up to him and says, like, you're gonna fight Mark Zuckerberg? And he's like. And then Mark Zuckerberg takes off his mask, right? Because they're about to start, and then introduces himself and they Shake hands. And, you know, like, Jeff's description of it was that he was, like, totally cool and respectful and was serious. Right. And that it wasn't like he had come with some gigantic entourage and, like, somebody blew an air horn and, like, there was a DJ being like, here is the zot, you know, or something. Like, you didn't have walkout music.
- [31:13]
A
Right, right. As a secret service is, like, chloroforming who look suspicious, like, in the stands.
- [31:18]
C
Exactly, exactly. No, I think that it was basically about as normal as it can be if you are one of the most famous people in the world.
- [31:29]
A
So Jeff's feeling, like, his internal feeling as this is all sinking in in terms of, like, anxiety level now, because he's realizing this is what.
- [31:40]
C
Well, yeah, I probed him quite a bit about this because I kind of wanted him to say, like, you know, like, basically, like, you know, let's start the revolution. Right. But he was much more reasonable than that. And his. He said, the thing that kept going through my mind was, don't become a meme. Don't become a meme. If you lose, you're gonna be a meme. Were you scared going in?
- [32:07]
B
Nervous, because knowing that I gotta fight one of the richest men in the world, and the whole time I'm like, I can't lose because I'm about to be a meme the next day if I lose next, you know, tell us to get on the mat. You know, it's like, all right, let's go. I think we gave a little fist bump, but the whole time I'm thinking, it's like, I cannot lose against this guy.
- [32:34]
C
There's ways in which you can just become a massive meme, and I don't think there's any bigger shortcut than getting choked out by Mark Zuckerberg.
- [32:41]
A
So. So. So Jeff understandably fears being imprisoned in the hall of Memes for all time. But what's funny about this is that what happens next does go extraordinarily viral, except that it's just. It's a different kind of thing. It becomes this unsolved sort of a mystery, which is, again, a huge thing I've been wanting to find out about with you. So what is what the happened in this match?
- [33:06]
C
So there's video of it that Jeff's wife took. Right. And it's a little bit hard to tell from the video, but, you know, Zuckerberg's kind of moving around, Jeff's moving around, and then they start grappling.
- [33:23]
B
The whole fight probably lasted around two and a Half minutes. Immediately after the referee told us to fight, we're circling around each other. Next, you know, Mark grabs onto my gi, pulls me down into him, which is called pulling guard from there. In that position, he's on the bottom, and he has his legs wrapped around me.
- [33:46]
C
Jeff says he's almost coming out of his shirt because Mark is grabbing him so hard and that after a certain amount of time, Mark is trying different types of things. And then Jeff finally locks in a choke.
- [34:00]
B
I end up sneaking my left arm underneath his head, and with my fingers, I end up grabbing the inside of my sleeve on my right arm. I end up hitting what's called an Ezekiel choke on him. So after I got the choke set up, what I did was my knuckles were going into the side of his neck. Like, I'm literally just trying to, like, hit his jugular and just cut off. Cut off any blood flow to his head. And I swear I could have been in that position for 10 minutes. You know, I was just on him. All my weight is just down on his neck, his face. I mean, when you're in that type of business, anytime someone's choking you, of course your face is going to turn a different color. His natural instinct was to try and choke me back, but in that type of position that he was in, it wasn't working for him. His legs were wrapped around me like this. At one point, they went just limp like that for a few seconds. Next thing you know, I hear the referee just say, stop. I let go. We both get up, and we just have this confused look on both of our faces. I couldn't really understand what the referee was telling him. And all of a sudden, referee walks over to me and raises my hand, and I'm still confused. And Mark comes up to me and is like, I didn't tap, did I? I'm like, no, he didn't tap. And I guess that's when the referee was explaining to him, it's like, hey, you were in a really bad position that you weren't gonna get out of. And for your safety, I had to stop the match. After the fight, we shook hands. We gave the bro a hug. He still. He still seemed a bit, like, surprised about the referee's ruling. First of all, I was like, I can't believe I just won. I was like, cool, you know? And second of all, I was like, damn, I just beat a billionaire.
- [36:08]
A
But a few weeks later, what Mark Zuckerberg says to the New York Times, this is a quote from him, is quote that never happened. End quote.
- [36:18]
C
Right.
- [36:18]
A
And then a meta spokesperson follows up and they reiterate the quote, saying at no point during the competition was Mark knocked unconscious. That never happened. End quote. Repeating it all again. So did Mark Zuckerberg actually get choked out by Jeff?
- [36:35]
C
According to Jeff, no. Right. And I would say Jeff is. I don't know. You do this business long enough and you get a sense of who is lying to you and who's not. And Jeff is not somebody who's going to lie.
- [36:49]
A
He didn't get paid off in the interim, is what you're suggesting.
- [36:51]
C
Yeah. Right. And like, he. The way that he describes it seems quite credible. It matches up with everybody else's response, which is that he had him in deep trouble, but that Zuckerberg wasn't at the point where he was tapping or that he was in real danger, but that, like, there is also no hope for Zuckerberg.
- [37:09]
A
What about the noises? Because there was this alleged snoring that happened, emanating from Mark Zuckerberg. What about the noises, the sounds Zuck was making?
- [37:21]
C
Apparently it was just grunting. Right. That kind of sounded like snoring. The ref said that he, that, like, Zuckerberg was snoring. Yeah. Did you hear any of that?
- [37:32]
B
I'm too much in the zone in a moment that I didn't hear anything. I think that term snoring can be used very loosely amongst the public and maybe casual jiu jitsu followers. He wasn't snoring like how you would snore in bed. Maybe he was making some weird sounds when I had the choke on him.
- [37:58]
C
The forensics of this thing are truly bizarre to me. And I find this. I generally think that's true of all viral videos, but for this one, I'm just like. I don't know. It's hard for me to as much as, like, there's a part of me that would like for this to be true. It's hard for me to see the evidence in the video. And then the second controversy is what happened after the fight. And there's a wide range of theories about it. There are stories that were printed.
- [38:21]
A
Well, we got to summarize some of these stories. Stories, because this is where I, I, I, I got into this. Because after the fight, just to clarify, this part of the story is that the ref intervened to prevent further harm to Mark Zuckerberg.
- [38:37]
C
Right, right. He was like, oh, I don't want you to get hurt more. You're in a bad position. And the real question around that is, would he have done that for anyone? Else, Right, right. Would he have intervened so early for anyone else?
- [38:54]
B
Maybe because he's of his status. The referee was protecting him. I mean, you hear. I've seen other competitors in tournaments literally go to sleep from chokeholds, and the referee doesn't stop the person from putting that other person to sleep. This was a special case.
- [39:15]
C
I guess you put yourself in the position of this ref. This is like a tournament at a small high school with white belts who just started doing recreational jujitsu.
- [39:26]
A
Jeff's kid is over there on a.
- [39:28]
C
Different mat four months ago. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, probably someone's.
- [39:31]
A
Your dad just killed Mark Zuckerberg.
- [39:34]
C
Yeah, it's someone's dad. Right? It's like. It's like, even less populated than Little League baseball because less people do it, you know? And so you have this guy who's probably somebody's father, and suddenly he's one of the world's richest men, is coming on here. He might get hurt. He's probably got a lot of lawyers. Right. And, like, are you really gonna sort of allow him to just get choked out? I would panic.
- [40:02]
A
Gonna run the cost benefit analysis, and I'm gonna say, probably not worth letting this play out.
- [40:09]
C
Right, right. You're like, no, no, no, no, no. You're fine, bro. Bro. You know, like, you got a lot to live for, you know?
- [40:17]
A
So. So we should say that we here at Pablo Torre finds out. We reached out to the referee in question. He did not respond to our request for comment. What he did do, though, was tell UFC blog about all of this, about Zuckerberg. Quote, he had started to snore, and the rule set says that snoring is a version of a verbal tap. And again, this is the Rashomon of this.
- [40:37]
C
Right.
- [40:37]
A
Like, there are all of these different accounts that are in conflict. But in terms of what happened after the viral video finishes, right? What. What happened with the refs? Like, what are the accounts there on what happened once we stopped being able to see how this transpired?
- [40:57]
C
So we talked to Kai Wu. He's this guy who's a MMA fighter. He's now in the professional fighters league, and on the side, he trains Mark Zuckerberg. He starts to go through a series of events or a series of sequence of actions in which he is asking what happened, basically, and effectively protesting the decision. So he goes to the person who's managing the ref, who he refers to as, like, the Grandmaster of the official.
- [41:26]
A
So Kai Wu, Mark Zuckerberg's trainer, calls for the manager.
- [41:30]
C
Right, right, right. Immediately, there is a head official over all the officials. He's the. The grandmaster, I guess you could say the head official. So he's the one that when you.
- [41:42]
E
Disagree with the ref, you can bring.
- [41:43]
A
This guy in and he'll come clear the air.
- [41:46]
C
We kind of chatted it out, and after watching footage and whatever, I guess he decided he was like, yeah, this is.
- [41:52]
E
This, this was a mistake.
- [41:54]
C
They sort of review the footage together, right? And they say, well, this was probably a mistake, it was a bad decision, but they're not gonna actually try and overturn the result because it's probably, like, too late to do any of that. But he. And then he, you know, his hope was that the ref would call it a no contest instead of a win for Jeff, but that didn't end up happening. And then Mark, I guess, sort of just accepted that this had happened.
- [42:22]
A
But just to clarify, though, so the ref's manager, upon inquiry from the Zuckerberg camp, says we actually probably shouldn't have.
- [42:33]
C
Ended the fight, according to Kai, but who knows? Jeff does not know about any of this, or he didn't say that he knew what was happening because I think he was just sort of in shock. Right.
- [42:46]
A
A lot's happened to Jeff in a very short amount of time.
- [42:53]
C
Like, Jeff somehow pulled the amazing stuff. I cannot think of another instance where this happens where, like, the meme polarization possibilities are so high, Right.
- [43:06]
A
Oh, my God.
- [43:06]
C
That if you win, you're a hero and you're like an online legend for. For at least three months.
- [43:14]
A
I mean, this is.
- [43:14]
C
This is.
- [43:15]
A
This is. This is first paragraph of the obit for Jeff.
- [43:19]
C
Yeah, yeah. Or like, you know, like, if there had been like a real close up shot, for example, right, Of Zuckerberg like, kind of struggling and Jeff just, like yanking on him, then Jeff is a hero. That image is everywhere. It's like, you know, it's like goals, memes. It's like, you know, me, that feeling when. Yeah, me, My anxiety, you know me. That type of meme.
- [43:44]
A
Late capitalism.
- [43:46]
C
Right, Exactly. And then if he loses, then all of that is flipped around. And so he had somehow, you know, I don't know, it must be an amazing experience. Like, Jeff is extremely humble guy, and so he didn't quite tell us the full extent of the celebrations that he was doing, but he was telling me, like, you know, sometimes when I'm out with my friends, they'll like, yell at strangers and be like, this is the guy that beat Mark Zuckerberg.
- [44:15]
A
But wait, just to get to the bigger picture. Here now. Because what I'm realizing is that this. Not just the meme dynamic here, but this just power dynamic doesn't exist anywhere else but where we have been exploring and now describing, which is the world of Brazilian jiu jitsu. Right. Like, in no other place can I imagine in just human history, Jay, does someone this powerful, a Mark Zuckerberg, an Elon Musk, even, do they potentially line up to get their asses kicked by the normies from steerage class. Like, they just don't volunteer for this sort of a risk. But here, this is specifically what they are so passionately monologuing about is effectively this thing.
- [45:11]
C
Like, it's just hard to think of what the equivalent would even be. Right? Like, it's just. I can't think of one. It's hard to. Like, Mark Zuckerberg, to his credit, went into a high school gym, right, As a white belt, not somebody who was a master, as somebody who was a novice. And he decided that he was just going to enter an open division competition, that he showed up and that he fought somebody that he didn't know. Right. With the full risk of losing, with the understanding that if he lost, that it was going to be a big deal that everybody would figure out. And if he loses, then exactly what happened is gonna happen.
- [45:47]
A
Right.
- [45:48]
C
You know, like, that would be.
- [45:49]
A
When I assigned this story to you, I was assuming that everybody would have signed an NDA.
- [45:54]
C
Right, right, right.
- [45:55]
A
You're Mark Zuckerberg, and you are not in control in all of these senses. You're definitionally not in control of something that would seem to be the most obvious thing you'd want to have power over.
- [46:08]
C
Right. There's like, the supervillain version of this is basically that he makes. He brings in a procession of random people that are, like, picked up off the street, approached by a man wearing, like, a trench coat, saying, hey, would you like to make a quick $5,000? And they go in and, like, they're worse than Mark Zuckerberg. And Mark Zuckerberg beats them up, feels great about himself.
- [46:28]
A
He has his bodyguards inject them with some sort of tranquilizer first.
- [46:32]
C
Yeah, exactly. They wake up in a dungeon somewhere, and then the movie starts. They have to get out. They're like, how do we escape from Zuckerber Island? But they. But he didn't do any of that, right?
- [46:42]
A
And crazy to me, it's. It's shocking to me that, right.
- [46:46]
C
He didn't take everyone's cell phones.
- [46:48]
A
Right.
- [46:48]
C
Like you would imagine. You could imagine Dave Chappelle Takes cell phones, comedy shows.
- [46:53]
A
Mark Zuckerberg is letting himself get choked out with no censorship restrictions.
- [46:58]
C
He went out and he sort of did it as it's supposed to be done, which is that in these small local tournaments, you know, with enthusiasts surrounded by the people who really love and are learning the sport. And for that, I don't know, you gotta give him a goal. I would never in my life think you have to hand it to Mark Zuckerberg. You kind of have to hand it to Mark Zuckerberg for that, you know, I don't know. It's like respect to him for doing that.
- [47:25]
A
I don't know where else these guys are signing up to get their asses kicked by normal people. I don't know where they're lining up to be in the dunk tank, right? To. To put themselves at. At all of this, all of this risk. And like, now I'm realizing I think I'm in favor of it. The more tech.
- [47:46]
C
Me too.
- [47:46]
A
That want to sign up for Brazilian Jiu Jitsu and go through what Mark Zuckerberg went through. That seems to be a net positive. Actually.
- [47:54]
C
They should all fight. Peter Thiel, you know, Elon Musk, Meg Whitman, like, whoever, right? Just get all of the Valley, you know, like all the. All in. If the all in podcast bro signed up, I would start training Jiu Jitsu so hard. You know, just dreaming of the day, you know, you can put in an Ezekiel joke. God, yeah. I would go crazy.
- [48:23]
A
Jay Caspian Kang, thank you for taking this assignment and helping me find out about the story.
- [48:30]
C
Thank you.
- [48:48]
A
I'm admittedly kind of embarrassed by what it is that I have found out today as I sit down on my keyboard to try and synthesize this. Because I'll be honest, I signed this story because I have a long standing distrust of Mark Zuckerberg, a distrust that dates back to college. And because I also think that tech bros cosplaying as MMA fighters, basically gentrifying a martial art. It felt like a trend that I wanted to end. But today, what I really found out is that I had this story all wrong. We should want as many Silicon Valley billionaires as possible to become obsessed with Brazilian Jiu Jitsu so that all of these masters of the universe, the ultra wealth wealthy like Mark Zuckerberg, can know exactly what it feels like to be not just choked out, but haunted, probably forever by some perfectly normal, average dude named Jeff. This has been Pablo Torre Finds Out a Meadowlark Media production and I'll talk to you next time.