What It's Like To Lose A Jiu-Jitsu Match To Mark Zuckerberg

For GQ, I tracked down the guy who lost his first-ever jiu-jitsu match to the Facebook billionaire.

mark zuckerberg in a jiu-jitsu match

The story: I tracked down the guy who lost his first-ever jiu-jitsu match to Mark Zuckerberg for GQ. Read it at the link.

The backstory: I’ve been doing jiu-jitsu for close to 20 damned years now (at least 15 consistently) and I’ve had my brown belt since 2016 (I’d probably have my black belt by now if I didn’t move twice and switch gyms four times between 2018 and now, but I’ll spare you the Uncle Rico hypotheticals). So when Mark Zuckerberg posted about winning his first jiu-jitsu match a couple weeks back, I was aware of it almost instantly.

Being that the tournament was in the Bay Area, where I did the bulk of my training, I figured I was at most two degrees removed from people who saw or participated in the match. I knew writing about it was very much a “me” story, but I wasn’t sure if it was a GQ story, and as the new guy, I was a little hesitant to pitch it. But I blurted it out at a meeting anyway, and as it turned out, they were as into the idea as I was.

The guy who had lost to Zuck, in what turned out to be his first-ever match, wasn’t too hard to find. I knew the gym, and my old coach knew his, but all I really had to was look him up and find him on Instagram. Luckily, he was super cool about it all and amenable to an interview. And the way he “lost” (by DQ in round 1, dominating round 2, and losing round 3 in the last few minutes) feels like I have to qualify it every time I write “lost.”

Writing it up was a little tough, mostly the part where I had to translate the esoterica of jiu-jitsu to the layman, while getting at the root of combat sports’ appeal in general, and why I found this story so fascinating in particular (I didn’t bother trying to explain what a “leg reap” is, but if you know, you know).

My editors did some great work polishing and streamlining, ultimately removing my original opening frame about Friends. It was the right decision, but since we’re doing inside baseball anyway, I’ll share it with you here:

In 1997, Jon Favreau played Monica’s boyfriend Pete Becker on Friends, a six-episode arc that ended when the “millionaire manager of a huge computer corporation” reveals to Monica, who had believed he was about to propose, that his most pressing desire is actually to become the Ultimate Fighting Champion. Little could the writers of “The One With The Ultimate Fighter” episode have known how much life would one day imitate art.

Remember that one? I’m pretty sure Jon Favreau is a big MMA-head, he’s had something MMA-related in almost all his movies since then.

Anyway, check out the piece. It was fun and I think Vijay was very candid.

RECIPE OF THE WEEK

Vince’s “Easy” Arbol Salsa

Still serving store-bought salsa at your get-togethers? Come on, man, respect your guests. Get off your ass and make some, it’s not too hard. I like this one because it’s pretty fast and easy, and tastes good both on tacos and for dunking chips. Plus it’s almost fresh tomato season.

Ingredients

4-5 dried chiles de arbol (or chiles japones) — these are easy to find where I am, you might have to order them if you live somewhere without a big Mexican population.
1 medium yellow or white onion
6-7 garlic cloves
1 lime
4 Roma, 5 campari, or 3 beefsteak tomatoes
1/2 cup fresh cilantro (optional)
1/4 cup water
Pinch of chicken bullion powder (I prefer Knorr)
Pinch of Tajín
Salt to taste (probably between 1/2 and 1 teaspoon)
Tablespoon-ish of olive, canola, or avocado oil.

Directions

Heat up a cast iron pan (or really any pan) nice and hot, to where the oil is smoking or almost smoking (char is a big part of Mexican cooking, don’t be afraid of it). Take your chiles de arbol and take off the stems or break them in half and dump out the seeds. Then take those and toast them in the pan. Mush them against the pan with a spatula until they turn deep red and vibrant or black. And open a window or turn a fan on, the chili smoke can get intense.

Remove those to a blender. Now take your onion and cut each end off. Lay it on a flat side and cut that in half. Dice one half of the onion and move the diced onion to the bowl you’re going to put your salsa in. Cut your lime in half and squeeze all of it over the diced onion in the bowl. Sprinkle some salt over it and massage it in (this is like a quick pickle that’ll remove some of the bite from the raw onions).

Take the other half of the onion and cut it into thinnish half moons, and add those to the hot pan. When they start to get a little color, add in the (whole) garlic cloves. Cook those for 5-10 minutes — the more char the better for the onions, but you don’t want to scorch the garlic too much (a few dark spots are fine). Find a happy medium. Add those to your blender.

Take your whole tomatoes and add them to the hot pan. You don’t need to cook these all the way down like you’re making a pasta sauce, just get some nice dark char on the skin and hopefully soften them a touch, maybe five minutes. Add those to the blender.

Now add your cilantro to the blender (cilantro stems taste must better than parsley stems so you can kinda just rip a handful of that shit and throw it in there, no need to be persnickety), along with the bullion, tajín, salt, and water. Now just blend it all up and pour it in your bowl with the limed onions. Stir it up a bit, add salt to taste, and it’s ready to serve. You can pop it in the fridge for 20-30 minutes to “mingle the flavors” or whatever, but I think it tastes just fine freshly mixed.

Top Chef rankings coming tonight.