Alexander Volkanovski’s impending title bout at UFC 284 is coming up. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg just wished him luck by sharing an intriguing visual of the two men sparring in the “metaverse” while using virtual reality (VR) technologies to their advantage.
This weekend in Perth, Volkanovski will compete against Islam Makhachev in the main event of one of the most eagerly awaited pay-per-view events of 2023. Whoever wins will be awarded the lightweight title and the pound-for-pound UFC champion title.
Zuckerberg can be seen sparring with Volkanovski using motion capture suits and other VR gear. The amazing footage shows the two guys performing striking drills, with Mark Zuckerberg trying to do a flying knee.
But some man question if Zuckerberg is even capable of pulling off such combo drawing attention to the combo ‘Zuck’ launches around 18s into the footage.
“The way this is presented is meant to convince you this is actually mo-capped animation, but you’ll catch me braiding Zuck’s butthair with my tongue before you’ll make me believe he slipped an entire Volk combo like at the :18 mark” – one fan writes.
And if you think that’s a far fetched comment, you should see Petr Yan flow sparring Phil Hawes – even though Hawes is an MMA pro, you can see exactly how former bantamweight champ outclasses him.
The animation showed captured their body motion and presented an accurate animated version of the two. Both of them were fighting in a virtual world.
Given their close connection, Alexander Volkanovski and Mark Zuckerberg sparring shouldn’t come as a surprise. Zuckerberg is a mixed martial arts fan and is well-known for avidly following the UFC. At UFC Vegas 61, he was last seen sitting cage-side with his partner.
Zuckerberg has taken up jiu-jitsu and mixed martial arts, and he occasionally posts videos of his training sessions on social media.
Alexander Volkanovski spoke with Ariel Helwani on The MMA Hour and described how he met the 38-year-old software tycoon.
“We sort of got started talking after the Max Holloway fight, when he found out I broke my hand… We were just talking about mindset, and that’s sort of how it started. Then we caught up and that. He’s a top bloke… I do consider him my mate… He’s a cool dude, we get along. I’m actually catching up with him a bit later on in the year. But yeah, cool dude. He knows his stuff.”