Strolling into the crowded lodge convention room, Andrew Batey regarded like every other tech man attending ETHDenver, an annual cryptocurrency convention. A enterprise capital investor primarily based in Florida, Mr. Batey wore a black sweatshirt emblazoned with the logos of greater than a dozen crypto corporations, with names like LunarCrush and bitSmiley. He had arrived on the town with some costly footwear — a pair of Off-White Air Jordans, the kind of sneaker, he mentioned, that individuals often don’t take out of the field.
Mr. Batey, nevertheless, was on the convention to not community with fellow crypto fanatics however to combat one in all them — reside on YouTube. On the lodge, a brief drive from the convention conference middle, he was making ready for his official weigh-in, the ultimate step earlier than a combat the subsequent night in an area full of crypto colleagues. Underneath the watchful eye of a consultant from the Colorado Combative Sports activities Fee, Mr. Batey, 40, stripped right down to his boxers, which have been adorned with a cartoon Santa Claus using a golf cart.
He weighed in at just below 195 kilos, on the right track for the combat. The bare-chested enterprise capitalist raised his biceps and flexed for the cameras.
The nation’s tech elite, not content material with unfathomable wealth and rising political affect in Washington, have lately developed a brand new obsession — combating. Throughout america, males like Mr. Batey are studying to punch, kick, knee, elbow and, in some instances, hammer an opponent over the pinnacle with their fists. The figurehead of the motion is Mark Zuckerberg, the billionaire chief govt of Meta, who has charted his spectacular bodily transformation from skinny pc nerd to martial arts fighter on Instagram, one of many apps he owns. A recent post confirmed Mr. Zuckerberg, wearing gymnasium shorts and an American flag T-shirt, grappling his opponent to the bottom.
The tech trade’s newfound devotion to martial arts is one aspect of a broader cultural shift that has upended U.S. politics. Many of those tech founders turned fighters are chasing a testosterone-heavy ultimate of masculinity that’s ascendant on social media and embraced by President Trump. An enthusiastic practitioner of Brazilian jujitsu, Mr. Zuckerberg, 40, lamented this yr that company tradition was getting “neutered” and was devoid of “masculine vitality.” In 2023, Mr. Zuckerberg’s fellow billionaire Elon Musk, a longtime corporate rival, challenged him to a televised cage match. The combat by no means occurred, although Mr. Musk urged at one level that he was willing to do battle within the Roman Colosseum.
Historical Rome is, in some methods, a helpful reference level for this period of ultrarich braggadocio. The wealthiest Romans have been fascinated with violent fight. The emperor Commodus even joined within the gladiatorial contests, claiming he had fought as many as 1,000 occasions. By the early twentieth century, combating was nonetheless a preferred pastime for the elites: An avid boxer in his Harvard years, Teddy Roosevelt regularly sparred on the White Home.
Today, the rise of blended martial arts is a part of a cultural revanchism that has thrived within the so-called manosphere, the place hypermasculine on-line commentators complain that girls have develop into too highly effective within the office. On this nook of the web, males are looking for to reclaim a type of aggressive masculinity that got here beneath scrutiny throughout the #MeToo period.
It’s the newest iteration of a phenomenon that the feminist author Susan Faludi described in her 1991 e book, “Backlash,” about how males have traditionally reacted to advances in ladies’s rights. In an interview final month, Ms. Faludi mentioned the rising male obsession with combating amounted to “a boy’s thought of what it means to be a person.”
“Residing out this childhood fantasy of being professional athletes, that’s simply puerile,” she mentioned. “These guys want to find yoga.”
The urge to combat has lately spilled over from the tech billionaire class to the trade’s trenches, the place mere decamillionaires and millionaires now observe martial arts in growing numbers. Mr. Zuckerberg’s transformation provided a “beacon of hope” for different executives, Mr. Batey mentioned. “Dreamers can latch on to one thing like this and say, ‘Possibly it’s doable.’”
Till recently, although, a run-of-the-mill tech founder hoping to flex his muscle groups on TV would have had restricted choices. Then an organization known as Karate Fight glimpsed a market alternative.
A ‘Clout-Forming Train’
Many of the tech world’s aspiring fighters have an important factor in frequent: Earlier than they began pursuing their extravagant new interest, they made some huge cash.
In 2018, Mr. Batey based Beatdapp, an organization that develops software program to eradicate fraud in music streaming. He additionally runs a enterprise capital agency, Facet Door Ventures, that invests in crypto start-ups. Like lots of his colleagues, Mr. Batey is the consummate pitchman. Even the miracle of life is a chance for crypto evangelism. When pals predict a child, Mr. Batey mentioned, he provides them Bitcoin (price greater than $100,000 at at present’s costs) and asks them to not promote till their little one turns 18.
“I at all times hated giving individuals like a onesie,” he mentioned. “I hate the idea of giving anyone one thing that they may simply afford.”
Two years in the past, Mr. Batey’s enterprise fund invested $500,000 in Karate Fight, a would-be competitor to the Final Combating Championship. The league operates as a hybrid between an athletic competitors and a tech start-up. Somewhat than providing conventional shares, Karate Fight gave Mr. Batey’s agency Karate tokens — a cryptocurrency that followers can wager on Karate Fight fights, which stream on YouTube in addition to TV channels like ESPN Deportes.
Karate Fight’s major enterprise is skilled combating — blended martial arts contests that includes seasoned athletes, a few of whom additionally combat in U.F.C. (A consultant for Karate Fight declined to disclose how a lot cash the league generates.) Final yr, the corporate created a brand new competitors for amateurs and began providing it because the undercard at professional occasions, that are generally held at crypto conferences. The competitors was known as Influencer Struggle Membership, and its premise was easy: Put a few tech guys within the ring and see what occurs.
Karate Fight’s fights have an in depth following on Crypto Twitter, and Influencer Struggle Membership has helped entice extra of these super-online followers. Over the past 18 months, the competitors has featured some large names within the crypto world, together with Nic Carter, a enterprise investor recognized for his combative posts on X, the place he has attacked authorities regulators and questioned the efficacy of Covid vaccines. At a crypto convention in Nashville final summer season, Mr. Carter, boasting a formidable physique, knocked out a tattooed crypto marketer in a single spherical. On social media, he was hailed as “kingly” and adopted the nickname “Tungsten Daddy.”
“That is a tremendous clout-forming train,” Mr. Carter mentioned in a latest interview. “To not be cynical about it.”
Mr. Batey attended an Influencer Struggle Membership occasion in Austin, Texas, final yr and determined he wished to combat, too. As soon as an beginner athlete who dabbled in boxing, he had gained numerous weight as his profession took off, finally carrying 283 kilos on his 5-foot, 10-inch body. He was about to show 40 and wanted to get into form for well being causes. However he additionally wished to have the form of athletic expertise often reserved for severe fighters, who generally practice their complete lives for the prospect to compete on TV.
“That is my fortieth party — me combating,” Mr. Batey defined. “Possibly it’s a midlife disaster.”
For 4 months, Mr. Batey put his profession on maintain and spent $75,000 on a coach, a nutritionist and a rotating forged {of professional} sparring companions. After the combat was scheduled for ETHDenver, a convention dedicated to the cryptocurrency Ethereum, he booked a block of practically 30 lodge rooms to accommodate his pals and supporters.
The coaching was transformative, Mr. Batey mentioned. He developed muscle groups he hadn’t seen in 20 years. Masculinity “doesn’t issue into how I give it some thought,” he mentioned. “However I undoubtedly really feel extra masculine.”
At first Mr. Batey had bother discovering an acceptable opponent. Final yr, he went to New York to spar with Billy McFarland, the creator of Fyre Pageant, the fraudulent music occasion that impressed a Netflix documentary. However Mr. McFarland backed out after Karate Fight refused to ensure him a $100,000 look payment, Mr. Batey mentioned. Mr. McFarland declined to remark. (Payouts fluctuate throughout Karate Fight’s influencer fights. One contract reviewed by The New York Instances provided a $2,000 participation payment and a bonus of $10,000 in Karate tokens if the fighter landed a knockout punch.) A second doable opponent declined to combat Mr. Batey over issues in regards to the venue: He couldn’t seem at an Ethereum convention as a result of he was loyal to Solana, a rival cryptocurrency.
By January, Mr. Batey was anxious the combat wouldn’t come collectively in time. Then an answer emerged: Chauncey St. John, a crypto entrepreneur primarily based in upstate New York.
Mr. St. John doesn’t appear very similar to a fighter. “I’ve bought this Mr. Rogers vibe to me,” he mentioned lately. However he had endured his share of hardship within the crypto world. In 2021, he based Angel Protocol, a start-up that aimed to assist charities increase cash utilizing crypto. Sadly, he steered his purchasers towards an funding platform tied to Luna, a digital forex whose worth crashed in a single day in 2022, setting off a meltdown within the crypto markets that erased a lot of what the charities had raised.
After the Luna crash, Mr. St. John, 38, retreated from public view. He reimbursed the charities with cash his agency had saved up and embraced Christianity, looking for that means within the worst second of his profession. Someday in January, Mr. St. John was scrolling on his cellphone when he glanced at a bunch chat that included different crypto fanatics. His eyes fell on a message from an trade colleague who goes by the nickname “The Degen Boii”: Karate Fight wanted a fighter for ETHDenver.
The invitation “felt like testimony from God,” Mr. St. John mentioned.
For a part of his life, he mentioned, he didn’t slot in with different males, and generally puzzled if he was homosexual. (He’s now married to a girl.) Right here was an opportunity to re-enter the crypto trade, re-establish his public profile and lay declare to what he calls “divine masculinity.”
“We’re making an attempt to make it so equality means there’s no distinction between the genders,” Mr. St. John mentioned. “There’s a wholesome masculinity that’s been thrown out, child with the bathwater-style.”
He signed a contract and booked a flight to Denver.
Nerds Making an attempt ‘to Man Up’
A number of hours after the weigh-in, Mr. Batey drove to the Stockyards Occasion Heart, a sprawling venue on the outskirts of Denver the place Karate Fight had erected 4 units of stands, overlooking a pit lined with mats. An in depth entourage got here alongside: two trainers, a few fighters from Mr. Batey’s gymnasium and a filmmaker capturing footage for a documentary about his transformation.
With 24 hours to go till the combat, it was time for the ceremonial face-off, a possibility for ostentatious trash speak. On the sting of the pit, the league’s president, Asim Zaidi, summoned the 2 crypto founders ahead.
Mr. Batey drew near Mr. St. John, virtually nostril to nostril. “Are you gonna kiss me?” Mr. St. John requested.
“We’ll discover out,” Mr. Batey replied.
When the theatrics concluded, Mr. St. John walked right down to the pit. Not like Mr. Batey, he had not had a lot time to organize; his entourage consisted of a single individual, a coach with no professional combating expertise, whom he had met just a few months earlier within the “Indigenous spirituality neighborhood,” he mentioned. Alone within the ring, Mr. St. John began to shadow field.
A number of toes away, Chiheb Soumer, a former skilled kick boxer, was watching him carefully. A local of Hamburg, Germany, Mr. Soumer, 36, had as soon as labored as an in-house coach for Snap in Los Angeles, instructing tech staff how you can field. He traveled to Denver as Mr. Batey’s coach.
“I like to see these nerds hastily attempt to man up,” he mentioned.
Even by martial-arts requirements, Mr. Soumer cuts an uncompromising determine, meting out blunt insults in a deep, accented voice, vaguely harking back to Arnold Schwarzenegger. He’s notably attuned to any signal that somebody is “delicate” — an unforgivable frailty that, in his view, explains all method of embarrassing conduct.
“That’s a really delicate assertion,” Mr. Soumer had noticed only a few hours earlier than the face-off, when Mr. Batey lamented that he’d had to surrender lattes to shed pounds for the combat.
Mr. Soumer was unimpressed with Mr. Batey’s opponent — or “this child Chauncey,” as he known as him. “No arms, no shoulder,” he mentioned, with the medical air of a horse breeder providing his verdict on a wobbly foal. Exterior the Stockyards, Mr. Soumer mimed a collection of stuttering lunges, whereas the remainder of Mr. Batey’s entourage roared with laughter.
“Bro, delicate,” Mr. Soumer mentioned. “Mushy like butter, bro.”
Mr. Batey grinned. “I’ve by no means had extra confidence for something in my life,” he mentioned.
He turned to Mr. Soumer. “After I knock him out, ought to I donate my winnings to his charity?”
“No,” Mr. Soumer replied. “Hold it for your self.”
Within the Ring on Struggle Evening
On combat evening on the Stockyards, the enemy combatants warmed up just a few toes from one another as the sector slowly full of spectators — males in crypto T-shirts and backward baseball caps, swigging beer and taking photographs. At 6 p.m., a roar unfold by means of the constructing, as Mr. St. John and Mr. Batey slid into the pit.
What adopted extra carefully resembled a schoolyard scrap than an expert martial-arts bout. The choreographed strikes that Mr. Batey had rehearsed have been nowhere to be seen. Again and again, he threw punches and missed, lunging ahead after which lurching again. Mr. St. John swung his arms wildly, whirling in a circle, like a helicopter. Subsequent to the pit, a panel of announcers provided reside evaluation for the YouTube viewers.
“What they lack in technical, they make up for within the coronary heart,” one commentator mentioned. His associate provided a blunter evaluation: “It’s hilarious.”
By the tip of the primary spherical, Mr. Batey’s nostril was bleeding closely. However quickly he pressured Mr. St. John to the bottom and straddled him, raining punches down onto his head. Inside 10 seconds, the referee intervened: Mr. St. John couldn’t proceed. It was over.
Mr. Batey held his arms aloft and began to bop, thrusting his pelvis towards the group. “I simply wish to thank my spouse,” he informed the cheering crowd. “Thanks for supporting me, making my meals, placing the children to mattress.”
Backstage, Mr. St. John was smiling. “I didn’t embarrass myself,” he mentioned. All the trouble had been price it. He would fortunately do it over once more
That evening, Mr. Batey went out to have a good time. He had showered, modified and cleaned up his face, aside from a single streak of dried blood that was intact on the bridge of his nostril. On the entrance to a celebration close to Civic Heart Park, Mr. Batey knowledgeable the bouncer that he had featured in “a professional combat tonight, a combat on TV.”
The bouncer didn’t appear impressed. However Mr. Batey discovered a extra appreciative viewers on the dance ground, the place his pals swarmed him, providing hugs and fist bumps. Quickly a chant went up: “Batey, Batey, Batey, Batey.”
Away from the group, Mr. Batey confided that on the area, not lengthy after the combat, he had approached Mr. St. John to precise his respect and gratitude — and to clarify that he was “happy with him, as a human.”
Mr. St. John had fought laborious, Mr. Batey mentioned. Possibly sometime they’d be pals.
“He’s an excellent man,” Mr. Batey mentioned. “We’re each simply good dudes.”
Kitty Bennett contributed analysis.
