Dave Camarillo has spent decades making people tap out, and for his 50th birthday, the Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt was on the receiving end of a shark tank experience.
In combat sports, a shark tank is a rite of passage that doubles as a celebration. The honoree hits the mat and rolls continuously against a rotating wave of fresh training partners, each one stepping in with full energy against the man in the middle. For someone like Camarillo, it is also an appropriate tribute.
Among those who showed up to honor the occasion was Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who took to Instagram with a tribute message.
“Happy 50th @davecamarillo! Thanks for getting me into figh ting. It changed my life. Here’s to 50 more years of punching people in the face,” Zuckerberg wrote on social media.
Camarillo, for his part, was clearly moved by the celebration. “Amazing birthday today,” he posted. “Thank you to all who push me and support me. I love this team! Thank you @shumei_wc my wife, my son… thank you @zuck for your determination!”
Speaking on Eddie Bravo’s podcast, Camarillo described the Meta CEO as someone who arrives at the gym with a singular focus. “He shows up like Keanu Reeves. Like, I’m here to do a job. I’m all in,” Camarillo said.
He has been training the tech billionaire for roughly a year and a half, describing the sessions as “a developmental process of sharing information, gaining information and all of us getting better.”
The Keanu Reeves comparison is not incidental. Camarillo spent 14 months working as part of the core stunt team on John Wick: Chapter 4, serving as one of Reeves’ primary trainers and helping choreograph some of the film’s most demanding sequences.
He described the experience as “without a doubt the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life, by far,” with 12-hour days spent rehearsing combat choreography six days a week. The training Reeves undertook before cameras rolled was, according to Camarillo, “worse than a camp.”
The two were connected through Camarillo’s network in the special operations world, a relationship that led to an introduction to Zuckerberg in 2022. This around the time Camarillo had lost his BJJ academy due to the pandemic.
The timing, in retrospect, proved fortuitous for both. Camarillo has said that training Zuckerberg has reinvigorated his own passion for martial arts, describing him as “the real deal.” The sessions reportedly include high-level training partners such as UFC champions Israel Adesanya and Alexander Volkanovski.
