Some viewers thought that Meta boss Mark Zuckerberg had an 'awkward' moment at UFC 298.
The Facebook founder walked out with Alex Volkanovski for his match with Ilia Topuria on Saturday night (17 February).
UFC’s pay-per-view event - which took place at the Honda Center in Anaheim, California - saw Volkanovski attempt the sixth defence of his belt.
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Sadly for the Zuckerberg-backed fighter, he was knocked out by Topuria in the second round.
Of his decision to have Zuckerberg walk to the cage with him, Volkanovski explained: "He was coming to watch and everybody knows that I’m mates with him and I chat to him regularly. I said ‘I’d love to have you walk out with me’.
"And he said ‘As long as it doesn’t get in your way’ and of course it didn’t.
"It was something different."
However, just before Volkanovski entered the cage, some viewers thought the tech titan had a bit of an awkward moment.
Taking to X (Twitter), one person thought they witnessed Zuckerberg 'awkwardly attempting a handshake' with what looked like the kitman.
The billionaire looked like he got ignored when either attempting a handshake or trying to help pass things around.
"I’ve never witnessed someone try so hard to be human," a second person commented.
As a third said: "Challenge him to a fight then."
Someone else penned: "Trying hard to be normal. Oh the struggles of a Billionaire. Mark is a good chap."
"Looks like something I would do," another admitted.
And one user suggested: "He don't like the spotlight, I bet he's all up in his head in this moment. 'Am I standing correctly? Is the camera on me? Am I supposed to help? What do I do?'"
This comes after Zuckerberg trained with Volkanovski and former UFC champion Israel Adesanya last year amid a potential cage fight against Elon Musk.
Musk, who took control of X in October 2023, tweeted that he was 'up for a cage fight' with Zuckerberg.
The Meta boss, who won his first jiu-jitsu competition last year, seemed to agree to the challenge by taking a screenshot of Musk’s tweet and replying 'send me location'.
The Tesla boss then joked that he had a 'great move' to show off to the Meta founder and noted that his workout regime consists of spending time with his children.
“I have this great move that I call 'The Walrus', where I just lie on top of my opponent & do nothing,” he tweeted.
Musk worryingly added: “I almost never work out, except for picking up my kids & throwing them in the air.”
Sadly, nothing really materialised after that.
Topics: Mark Zuckerberg, MMA, UFC, Sport
Anish Vij