- Mark Zuckerberg attended UFC 298 on Saturday, and appeared in fighter Alex Volkanovski’s corner.
- Footage circulated on social media showing Meta’s CEO seemingly unsure what he needed to do.
- X users turned it into a meme, comparing it to meeting new people and trying to fit in in social situations.
Most people know by now that Mark Zuckerberg is a big martial arts fan, from the near-endless saga of whether he’d fight Elon Musk, to tearing his ACL while sparring.
But it looks like just training with professional fighters isn’t enough, as the Meta CEO was pictured in UFC featherweight champion Alex Volkanovski’s corner during UFC 298 on Saturday.
In the fight, Volkanovski lost his title to Georgian fighter Ilia Topuria, but much online discussion focused not on the bout, but on a 10-second clip of Zuckerberg before the fight.
Donning a tracksuit, the world’s fourth-richest person nodded his head and kept offering his hand as one cornerman passed items to another.
Footage of Zuckerberg’s ignored attempts to lend a helping hand, perhaps unsurprisingly, circulated rapidly on X.
Soon the Meta CEO’s pre-fight awkwardness was the subject of a whole lot of memes, gently poking fun at something we all experience once in a while: being in a situation where you’re not really surely what to do.
Users on X compared Zuckerberg to someone “trying to be collaborative with the cashier while they ring up my groceries,” and “going to someone’s house and asking if I can help with anything before dinner.”
Other comparisons included comparing him to Cousin Greg from HBO’s “Succession,” and to a finance worker attending an AI conference.
Zuckerberg’s appearance seemed to bring joy to some fighters, however, with Merab Dvalishvili, who defeated Henry Cejudo earlier in the night, climbing onto the top of the Octagon to give the watching Zuck a high-five.
Dvalishvili even joked that Zuckerberg’s presence distracted him, saying in his post-fight press conference, per MMA Fighting: “I got too excited. I was looking at Mark Zuckerberg and I had too much fun. Maybe I should focus to finish.”
Saturday’s UFC trip is not the first time Meta’s CEO has found himself on the receiving end of the meme treatment.
But at least for Zuckerberg, this one is joking about something that’s happened to most people, rather than comparing him to a robot.
