SpaceX’s Elon Musk fighting Meta Platforms’ Mark Zuckerberg in a caged UFC match came very close to becoming a reality. After the UFC White House event last week, UFC CEO Dana White was asked by reporters whether he would consider hosting events in more iconic venues, like the Colosseum in Rome.
White’s response left UFC fans in shock. He said staging fights at the Colosseum is ‘impossible’, because he was ‘negotiating the deal with Zuckerberg and Musk — that was real.’
‘I was literally in my backyard for two weeks negotiating that fight, and they wanted [it to be in] the Colosseum. The Colosseum wanted something like $150 million to do it there, which would go into a fund that restores all the iconic places in Italy,’ White told reporters, adding that the Colosseum would have allowed that fight because the tech titans were going to put up the money.
He added that ‘anybody that wants to put up the money for UFC to fight in the Colosseum, I’m in.’
‘I had a blast doing the negotiations with that thing, talking to Elon for an hour every night, talking to Mark an hour every night… about the fight, where it would be, weight classes, this, that,’ White had concluded.
The Colosseum was completed in the year 80 AD and remains one of the most protected historic sites, which hosted ancient gladiatorial combat spectacles. Even if Musk and Zuckerberg’s UFC match went through, the logistics of hosting the match at the venue were likely to be brutal, given the fragile structure, which is not designed for modern broadcast equipment and production crews.
It All Began in 2023
That year, Musk challenged Zuckerberg to a cage fight amid peaking rivalries between the tech giants.
Musk reportedly challenged Zuckerberg to fight in June, before Meta launched Threads to rival Musk’s X platform. In the following day, Musk taunted Zuckerberg, but the latter likely took the proposed fight seriously.
As an avid martial arts fan with a track record in jiu jitsu tournaments, Zuckerberg was already training with former UFC champions, including Israel Adesanya and Alexander Volkanovski.
According to Forbes, Musk had suggested the Vegas octagon as the fight venue following which White had informed them that he spoke with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Melon to host the fight at the Colosseum, but the event never materialised.
In August of 2023, Zuckerberg noted on Threads that Musk isn’t serious about the fight and ‘it’s time to move on.’
Zuckerberg even claimed to have offered a real date for the match, adding that White was planning to make this a legit competition for charity. He claimed that Elon won’t confirm a date and was asking to do a practice round in his backyard instead.
UFC’s Collaboration With Meta
The UFC committed to a long-term collaboration with Meta last year, when the company became the promotion’s first fan technology partner.
In early 2026, the two entities also agreed on a major naming rights deal to change the UFC’s Apex name to the Meta Apex. At the same time, Meta’s technology is likely to become an integral part of the new UFC ranking system.
This week onwards, the UFC will begin its transition from a media-voted ranking system to a data-driven approach, likely powered by Meta’s AI systems.
