Chael Sonnen has claimed that Mark Zuckerberg contacted him about a UFC match between billionaires Zuckerberg and Elon Musk, only for the news to be denied by a representative for Zuckerberg hours later, and also recalled a past incident of being “catfished” by a person running UFC fighter Aspen Ladd’s Twitter account for several months.
Chael Sonnen, a notable name in the MMA circle, was recently under the impression that Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Meta, reached out to him with the news of a scheduled fight between him and Elon Musk in a so-called “battle of the billionaires” at UFC 300. The news, however, was soon contradicted by a representative for Meta in a TMZ report, casting doubts on the veracity of Sonnen’s claim.
This is not the first incident of Sonnen falling prey to a hoax; he humorously admitted on ‘The MMA Hour’ to having been ‘catfished’ in the past. He narrated an experience where he was tricked by an individual pretending to be the rising UFC bantamweight contender, Aspen Ladd. Sonnen claimed he carried out a seven-month long direct message exchange with the person running the account before realizing he had been duped.
Sonnen’s anecdote includes how the impersonator’s usage of third-person, instead of first-person pronouns, clued him in on the ruse. Upon confronting the person behind the account, they admitted their deceit. Strangely enough, he ended up befriending the woman behind the impersonation through mutual connections. Sonnen also regretted the decline of Aspen Ladd’s promising UFC career, which culminated with her being let go by the promotion due to weight-related issues.
Despite misleading experiences, as far as Sonnen is concerned, he harbours no hard feelings over his Twitter miscommunication with the person imitating Aspen Ladd. He drolly clarified that it was indeed Ladd’s account, but it was managed by “what the kids call a publicist”.