There is a certain appeal to imagining Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg punching each other, but the media really needs to stop covering their “cage match” as anything but a dumb stunt.
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When Twitter owner Elon Musk challenged Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg to a “cage match” last month, it was tough to imagine anything dumber than two billionaires wanting to physically fight each other. Since then, however, things have gotten progressively more ridiculous.
Normally, a PR event involving two attention-seeking wannabe alphas is not something we would cover. In fact, no publication should (although they all did). Except maybe The Onion.
However, among all of the slow news days, the Mondays between weekends and major holidays rank at the very top, so it’s unlikely that anything is going to happen today.
Therefore, it seems like an opportune time to write about this stupid fight — especially because the alternative was a preview of that hot dog eating contest in New York.
And, to be fair, we are not so much covering the fight as making fun of it.
So, let’s get to it.
If you are among the people who were unaware of Musk’s challenge, let us first applaud you. Bravo! Please continue with your news consumption habits because you are clearly doing it right!
But, for the purpose of this article, allow us to catch you up:
It all began when Musk reacted to an article saying that Zuckerberg’s Meta was planning to launch a Twitter rival by saying he is “up for a cage match.”
When the Zuckster, who has been honing his survival and Jiu Jitsu skills, indicated that he is up for a fight, the media frenzy began.
Things have gotten so preposterous that Musk recently suggested that this cage match might take place in the Colosseum in Rome. That seems like a dream venue for the two tech moguls. They must love the idea of being viewed as modern-day versions of Maximus, the character Russell Crowe played in the Academy Award-winning epic Gladiator.
That was choreographed fiction, of course. And, although there is a certain appeal in imagining these two idiots punching each other in the face, it does not seem likely that a fight between these two middle-aged men will be as entertaining as the film.
But it could be.
With just a few modifications to traditional cage matches, this could get very interesting.
So here are five suggestions that would make this fight worthy of the attention other media organizations have already given it:
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- No rules: This is a no-brainer. Very few rules seem to apply to billionaires these days, so why start now?
- No referee: Along the same lines, as tech oligarchs with near monopolies, these guys aren’t used to any kind of oversight.
- Winner takes all: This would be much more interesting if each of them had to put up one of their companies. For example, Instagram and Twitter have similar valuations (or at least they did before Musk took over and ran the latter into the ground), so let’s make sure our two brave heroes have some skin in the game.
- Swords: The dumbest way this could go would be for both of them to be heavily protected. If they want to be like Maximus, there should be swords involved. Or chainsaws.
- To the death: If people are supposed to care about this nonsense, then at least make it worth their while. Getting rid of one of the narcissistic billionaires whose social media companies have contributed to so much division would do the trick.
However, seeing how it is unlikely that this will be anything other than a dumb stunt, can we please all just stop talking about it?
