From RFK Jr.’s Shirtless Workout to Elon’s Cage Match: It’s Been a Big Week for Boys Spoiling for a Fight

Since time immemorial, men have loved to challenge each other to fights. In antiquity, they wrestled it out. In the Middle Ages, there was the joust. In the Industrial Age, we had our pistol duels. Times being remarkably online as they are now, men are challenging each other to debates. Occasionally, when, say, a Paul brother is involved, these debates still occur with fists in front of an audience, but by and large, “debate me” has become the “shall we settle this outside” of our times. It’s nice that modern men get to participate in a grand Western tradition, though also a little sad that we are in the umpteenth century of men toiling under the impression that shouting for a big, public fight is good instead of strange and small. Let’s look at some recent trends in the space of dudes challenging dudes.

Robert F. Kennedy Jr., the 69-year-old son of Robert F. Kennedy and vocal anti-vaxxer, who once compared having the opportunity to take a COVID-19 vaccine to living in Hitler’s Germany, is saying, “Debate me!” to President Joe Biden, while shirtless (he later apologized for the Hitler comparison). Well, to put a real fine point on it, he’s doing incline reps sans shirt at Gold’s Gym in Venice Beach and tweeting that it’s all in preparation for a debate with Biden that is pretty certain to never, ever happen. Why? Well, he’d like to be the next Democratic president of these United States. Why would Mr. Kennedy operate under the impression that doing push-ups with his nips out will help his chances of becoming president of these United States? As we learned from the last long-shot failson to make it into the White House, it probably doesn’t hurt to put the pec in spectacle. (For the record, said previous long-shot failson has seriously divergent views on the relative benefits of physical activity.)

Speaking of spectacle, Elon Musk recently started starting something too. The owner of Tesla and Twitter last week responded to some guy’s post about Meta reportedly creating a Twitter-like product under its banner, with another commenter suggesting a cage match with Mark Zuckerberg, Meta’s CEO. 

“I’m up for a cage match if he is lol,” Musk said. Sometimes he makes his little jokes and his reply guys say, “Yay,” and everyone else whose desk it crosses says, “It’s weird he didn’t get all this silly energy out at grade seven, but here we are I suppose.” 

This could have been just another day of Musk saying stuff on the internet, but then Zuck replied by posting on Instagram, which is owned by Meta, “send me location.” A spokesperson for Meta told The Verge, “The story speaks for itself,” meaning it is not just two guys shitposting at each other. Unless you believe it is. Some real, clear messaging from the owners of two of the largest messaging platforms in human existence.

The thing is, this makes a lot of sense—though maybe not in a way Elon or Zuck would like. If you, by hook or more likely by crook, reach an income that is a certain percentage of your lowest paid employee’s income, you should be automatically entered into a Hunger Games-style cage match for the benefit of everyone else’s entertainment. Listen, the fight can be on a yacht, if you like. It can be in Las Vegas, as this one is supposedly going to be. (Musk replied to Zuck’s call for a location with “Vegas Octagon.”) But you should have to commit your life to fighting other mega-elites with your fists.

Musk’s mother, Maye Musk, disagrees with the wisdom of a fight in general. She insisted in a tweet that the “fight is canceled,” and later tried to appeal to her son’s self-perception as a guy who is funny by suggesting, “A verbal fight only. Three questions each. The funniest answers win. Who agrees?”

Not me! I don’t agree, Ma Musk. Three questions isn’t going to do it. They must fight to the death. On this there can be no debate.