Midnight Mania! Elon Musk slams Mark Zuckerberg for Colosseum no-show: ‘Is there anywhere he will fight?’

Welcome to Midnight Mania!

The idea for the billionaire vs. billionaire brawl between Tesla’s Elon Musk and Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg has only been circulating since the end of June, but the hype built quickly. Betting odds dropped and lukewarm trash talk simmered. A whole bunch of UFC fighters chose their corner, and UFC President Dana White did his best to convince anyone who would listen that it wasn’t a gimmick.

The initial hype was fun, but then nothing materialized. There’s been no meaningful progress in actually booking the thing, which is precisely what most expected. Zuckerberg proposed a date, while Musk proposed an extravagant location, the famed colosseum in Italy.

Between the two, Zuckerberg has been the one actively training martial arts for quite some time. He seems annoyed with the delays and recently announced that he was looking to move on from the match up. Predictably, Musk isn’t impressed with his decision, and he slammed his rival tech CEO for ducking the fight. According to Musk, Zuckerberg is the one making things difficult at every turn, refusing to fight anywhere.

Fight Recap:

I joked on X about fighting Zuck

Zuck then said “SEND ME LOCATION”

Italy graciously offered a Colosseum

Zuck declined

I suggested his home as “safe space”

Tragically, he was ahem “traveling”

Is there anywhere he will fight?

https://t.co/gpcRLW49fv

— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 15, 2023

Since I do get paid to predict fights here, I’ll offer up a surefire prediction here: this is about as far as it goes. Unless they actually decide to fight one another, this is the end point. Both men have an argument that the other man is ducking the contest, and thus both egos are preserved without any fists flying.

It was always going to end this way.

Perhaps Zuckerberg will try to compete for UFC or One Championship against someone else. He’s been willing to get choked out in jiu-jitsu competition, which counts for something. Still, getting punched in the face remains a majorly different proposition than rolling around in one’s fanciest pajamas, so a fight for either is far from guaranteed.

Insomnia

The original match up was great, and this one is too. It’s a shame though, because both Anthony Hernandez and Roman Kopylov have earned shots at ranked opponents.

Israel Adesanya embraces the meme. If he walked out with a Chinese flag or something similar in Australia, that would be his funniest move yet.

Jiu-jitsu parents are insane. There’s nothing like refereeing and getting yelled at for stopping some little six year old from getting their arm snapped because, “They’re flexible!” and haven’t tapped yet.

Nothing in MMA hurts more than low kicks.

Michael Bisping has been trolled to the point that his trust is completely broken.

Think Mike Chandler has a body shot KO in him? He’d have to stop throwing all his right hands like fastballs.

.@HenriHooft I and always said I needed a few things before I retire – a K.O. via head kick(✔️Tony) and a body shot K.O. – I’m looking to put water in the basement. Hope that body is built up.

— Michael Chandler (@MikeChandlerMMA) August 15, 2023

Slips, rips, and KO clips

Knockdown into spider monkey mode! Remember the Sodiq Yusuff tweet last week about following people to the ground? Kawaihae is a genius!

Marlon Vera vs. Davey Grant deserves to be ranked higher on the all-time bangers list.

Quite the turnaround!

Random Land

Update on the submarine people:

Midnight Music: Hip-hop, 1994

Sleep well Maniacs! More martial arts madness is always on the way.