By:  | October 6, 2022 9:06 am

Jingliang Li was so excited to watch Xiaonan Yan fight at UFC Vegas 61 last weekend that he bought a new suit especially for the occasion. But the Chinese welterweight’s plans were thwarted by Mark Zuckerberg who paid to rent out the entire Apex Centre and turn it into a private event.

The only consolation for Jingliang was that he got to share a picture of himself wearing the suit with his 160,000 Instagram followers:

Private event

Jingliang probably had to settle for a spot on a bar stool in Las Vegas to watch the show on TV. He would definitely have been overdressed and explained that he had the suit made by a tailor before discovering UFC Vegas 61 would be a private event.

“Tailored this suit for Yan’s fight. Then I heard the arena was rented out.”

Zuckerberg and his wife were cage side to see Yan defeat Mackenzie Dern by majority decision in the main event. Jingliang had hoped to be there too but the Facebook head honcho had paid to rent out the entire venue.

It appears to be part of Zuckerberg’s growing fascination with MMA. He recently shared some footage of him sparring with Taiwanese bantamweight Khai Wu and it seems he has been training in secret for several months.

With a net worth of $50 billion USD the Facebook founder is probably a good man to know. We don’t know how much Dana White charged him to rent out the Apex Centre last weekend but the price probably wasn’t cheap!

Insult to injury

Adding insult to injury for Jingliang is the fact that this is the second time in the space of a month he has got all dressed up with nowhere to go. Ahead of UFC 279 he had a suit tailor made for the press conference.

But the press conference was cancelled at the last minute after an altercation backstage involving the Diaz brothers. It means Jingliang never got to display his new suit or show off his English skills which are reportedly improving.

Last weekend was the second time in the space of a month that Jingliang travelled to Las Vegas with a new suit for an occasion that he would never be able to attend. He just can’t catch a break, but at least his tailor is busy!