NYT Says Mark Zuckerberg Got Choked Out, He Denies It, Internet Searches For Video

mark zuckerberg dana white - nyt choked out video jiu jitsu

Getty Image


The New York Times claimed in a recent article that Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg got choked out at a jiu-jitsu tournament.

He, of course, denied it, then got the source of the story to deny it. Now the internet desperately wants to find video of it happening.

Now, in case you weren’t aware, Zuckerberg has been training with Bay Area Guerrilla Jiu-Jitsu. Last month, he won his first-ever jiu-jitsu competition, and he dominated.

Back in August of 2022, Mark Zuckerberg told Joe Rogan, referring to jiu-jitsu, “There’s something that’s just so primal about it.”

Using only his first and middle name, Mark Elliott won a gold medal, a silver medal and a bronze medal at the competition held at Woodside High School in California.

The one thing that didn’t get reported at that time was that during that May competition, where Zuckerberg defeated an Uber engineer, is that during one match he lost consciousness.

Over the weekend, the New York Times reported that José Lucas Costa da Silva, a Brazilian jujitsu veteran who refereed one of Zuck’s matches, said he had to stop the fight after he heard Zuckerberg start to snore (a sign of someone who has passed out while locked in a choke hold).

“This is something we are trained to know,” said Costa da Silva.

Shortly after the Times article hit the internet, Zuckerberg and da Silva both contacted the news outlet to let them know Zuckerberg did not get choked out.

“That never happened,” Zuckerberg wrote in an email to the Times.

Costa da Silva also amended his story to say he mistook Zuckerberg’s grunting for snoring. (So, why did he stop the fight? Hmmm…)

Danny Patalot, the chief executive of BJJ Tour which hosted the event, said about the Meta boss, “There was no fear. That’s not typical for a white belt competitor at a first tournament.”

Of course there wasn’t. As Casey Johnston, who writes about exercise and strength training told the Times, fighting sports appeal to people like Mark Zuckerberg because “it’s like being on a playground with a bully, but in this new framework.”

Naturally, once the report that someone had allegedly choked out Mark Zuckerberg hit the internet all of the amateur sleuths out there went in search for video of it happening.

“Going with the ref here,” someone else tweeted. “Guessing it’s not his first match and has heard both grunting and snoring.”

“And I would never have known about it if he hadn’t launched a PR campaign to assert that what I am now absolutely certain happened, didn’t in fact happen,” another person commented.

Oh yeah, Bloody Elbow also spoke with the referee four weeks ago and this is what he told them before recanting his story to the Times

“There was no argument,” he said. “It was in Gi and he got choked out. That was the video you saw. I stopped it and he wanted to check with me about why I stopped it. He didn’t know what was happening, which was one of the reasons I stopped it. But he had started to snore and the rule set says that snoring is a version of a verbal tap.”

“I was paying a lot of attention,” Costa added. “I was paying even more attention because it was Mark. He got caught in an Ezekiel and I waited, but he didn’t fight back. And I was waiting, but on the third snore I had to stop the fight. He was very polite but he wanted to know how the rules work.”

Douglas Charles headshot avatar BroBible
Before settling down at BroBible, Douglas Charles, a graduate of the University of Iowa (Go Hawks), owned and operated a wide assortment of websites. He is also one of the few White Sox fans out there and thinks Michael Jordan is, hands down, the GOAT.