The internet is abuzz with the improbable rumour that Facebook founding father and MMA partisan St. Mark Zuckerberg will stair into the octagon for a UFC mate on Saturday. Fueling the conjecture is a picture he posted on Sept. 3 on Facebook. It shows Zuckerberg grooming with Khai Shanghai dialect at the UFC fighter’s Guerilla Jiu-Jitsu Academy in San Jose, Calif. (It’s embedded at the death of this post.)

On Wednesday, Zuckerberg’s front at Saturday’s UFC 61, a strawweight bout 'tween Sir Alexander Mackenzie Dern and Yan Xiaonan, was confirmed by Dern during a printing press conference.

“I know Gospel According to Mark Zuckerberg rented out the unit event,” she told reporters. “I know he’ll follow there, but i don’t cognise if it’s literally him, his married woman or if he’ll have got friends – some typecast of party. But from someone who wanted a briny event with a crowd, [it’s now] going to live very, really private.”

This provided a much-demanded explanation for wherefore the public and media had inexplicably been banned earliest this week from the event. The UFC has held steady televised cards at its Apex Gym on its Las Vegas corporate campus since the bulge out of the pandemic. However, it has e'er allowed some fans and media to watch over from the audience.

“It just makes me to a greater extent impelled to position on a right show,” Dern said when asked virtually the last-minute change. “I live everyone is watching on TV, but for Gospel According to Mark and whoever is sledding to be there, set on a show. If that’s what they want to see, is a show, then we’re sledding to commit a show.”

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Later on Wednesday, UFC President Dana White River took to Twitter to deny Dern’s claim, stating: “Mark Zuckerberg did NOT hire come out the UFC Apex. That’s add up bulls–t.”

White’s denial notwithstanding, on that point could live another, to a lesser extent insane conclude for the front of the 39-year-old billionaire on Saturday. Patrick White has stated that the UFC wants to program a struggle into the metaverse – a go under of 3D locales that canful live accessed only when via VR equipment.

“We’ve been working on it for a while,” he told YouTube’s “Full Send” podcast back up inwards January. “It’ll be a live fight, an existent scrap that takes property privileged the metaverse. It’d follow kids at home, you position on your (goggles) and you tin can (get) upwards and spell manner of walking around. We’re noneffervescent workings it out, but yeah, it’ll live soon.”

If Zuckerberg does exhibit up, it could merely signal that those plans are entering their net stages. Just II days ago, Zuckerberg posted on Facebook a video of Olympic medalists Bruce Lee Kiefer and Gerek Meinhardt fencing in the metaverse. Zuckerberg explained inwards that post: “Using our young high-end VR headset coming come out next month with mixed reality … you tin can regard virtual objects (like your friends fencing) alongside the physical human beings around you.”

Saturday’s 13-bout Fight Night identity card starts with prelims at 4 p.m. ET, followed by the undercard bouts at 7 p.m. ET. Dern (12-2) is place to get into the octagon with Xiaonan (15-3) around 10 p.m. ET. The oppose testament be broadcast, as usual, on ESPN+.

And no, Zuckerberg is not on the identity card – not officially, anyway. But if you really want to escort the guy rope fight, here you go…