Musk-Zuckerberg gladiators inside the Colosseum? The ministry: “If they do charity…”
“There has been no formal contact from the Ministry nor any written document. Even if the news appears tasty, it is unfounded”: sources from the Ministry of Culture let it be known after a highly accredited American gossip site, Tmz , had spoken of interlocutions with the Italian government to host at the Colosseum the martial arts duel between Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg for which the two tech tycoons challenged each other, it is not clear to what extent only as a provocation.
To corroborate the idea of a ‘gladiatorial’ duel in the Flavian Amphitheater came the tweet with which Musk said that “there are possibilities that it will take place in the Colosseum”. Tesla’s patron practiced judo in his youth and Meta’s number one is an expert in ju-jitsu and there would also have been contact with Dana White, the president of the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) to organize the challenge.
Since June 22, when Musk threw the gauntlet at his rival to challenge him in an MMA ring (initially there was talk of Las Vegas), the story has mounted to the point that bets circulate and there is talk of two coaches, George St-Pierre for Musk and Lex Friedman for the founder of Facebook.
“The Colosseum is granted, not from today, for high-profile paid events almost always for charity”, recall the MiC, “each request is carefully evaluated by the management of the Archaeological Park which verifies its compatibility for the purpose of protecting the site and it does not belong to the political body”.
The fact that the mere mention of the Colosseum made the exchange go viral, they observe to the Ministry, “is yet another demonstration that the Italian cultural heritage is at the center of world interest. If Zuckerberg and Musk wanted to perform in the Colosseum they would have to give life to a challenge that ends with a hug. And maybe a sort of ‘certamen’ would be better, a duel involving strokes in Latin verses. And they should ensure a reasonable economic contribution to be donated to the protection of Italian historical and artistic heritage and perhaps a share to Emilia Romagna”.
There is a small modern martial arts precedent at the Colosseum and it is cinematic: in 1972 Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris filmed a scene of ‘The scream of Chen terrorizes the West too’ in which they fought in the galleries of the Roman amphitheater . The images, however, had been shot in a Hong Kong studio and then superimposed on a fake background with the Roman amphitheater, after the trip to the Eternal City, despite the authorization obtained from the Superintendency, had been rejected for economic reasons.
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