On June 14, President Donald Trump will celebrate both his 80th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding with the country’s greatest spectacle: several hours of undoubtedly bloody cage fights on the White House’s South Lawn.
The event is the culmination of a long relationship between Trump and the UFC’s president, American businessman Dana White. White, who recently told Rolling Stone that he was “right down the middle” politically, has been a staunch ally of the president for Trump’s entire political career. Trump, in turn, has been both Dana White and the sport of MMA’s biggest fan for decades.
“Everyone has their thing, and Donald Trump’s thing is the UFC,” White told Rolling Stone.
In recent years, the UFC’s rising popularity has helped White establish something of a chokehold on American culture, as his sport is integral to the increasingly right-leaning “manosphere.” MMA now sits at the nexus of American politics and culture. A fight at the heart of the capital, then, was almost inevitable — all Donald Trump had to do is ask.
Rolling Stone will be at the fights in June, but until then, here’s everything we know.
Why is the White House hosting a UFC event?
In short, because Donald Trump asked them to. Plans for a UFC event at the White House started about a year ago, when Trump privately suggested to White that they hold an event in D.C. White described it as an offhand comment while both men were sitting cageside at an event in South Florida, but it quickly became a reality as preparations for the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding ramped up.
The longer answer is a bit more complicated. White and Trump have been friends since the early 2000s, when Trump allowed White to host several of his first UFC events at the Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City. Trump also became a huge fan of the sport, sitting cage-side for every fight during those first few events.
The two men’s relationship deepened when White agreed to introduce Trump at the 2016 Republican National Convention.
“When he first called me [in 2015], he said, ‘Listen, if you don’t want to do this, I completely understand, but I’d be honored if you’d speak for me at the Republican convention,’” White told us during the Rolling Stone Interview. “Everybody told me not to do it. The two reasons were, number one, you don’t want to get anywhere near politics, and number two, he’s never going to win.”
Since that moment, the UFC has grown into a major cultural force in America. In the run-up to the 2024 election, White personally put his thumb on the scale for Trump, utilizing contacts in new media spaces like podcasting and social media to help Trump get in front of a new demographic of younger voters. White facilitated Trump’s appearances on Theo Von’s podcast, the Nelk Boys channels, various Barstool Sports podcasts and, of course, The Joe Rogan Experience. It worked, of course: Trump was elected to a second term, and celebrated his victory at a blowout UFC event at Madison Square Garden a few days after the election.
But the real reason for the White House event is a little more personal. Trump loves the UFC. Throughout his career, UFC events have been safe spaces for him — he’s always introduced to a standing ovation, and rarely has to contend with the boos or jeers that sometimes dog him at other sporting events. Trump is always looking to put his own stamp on world events, so it makes sense that he’d want to bring a spectacle that is intricately linked with his own rise to the America 250 celebrations in the capital.
Who is fighting?
The fight card is both exciting and a little bit bizarre. There are some huge names on there, but also some last-minute additions as well as Trump’s personal favorite fighter, Derrick Lewis.
Here’s the full card.
Main event: Ilia Topuria vs Justin Gaethje for the Lightweight Championship
Co-main: Alex Pereira vs Ciryl Gan for the Heavyweight Interim Championship
Sean O’Malley vs. Aiemann Zahabi at Bantamweight
Josh Hokit vs. Derrick Lewis at Heavyweight
Mauricio Ruffy vs. Michael Chandler at Lightweight
Bo Nickal vs. Kyle Daukaus at Middleweight
Diego Lopes vs. Steve Garcia at Featherweight
The lineup leans heavily towards fighters like Bo Nickal, Josh Hokit, and Michael Chandler, all of whom have publicly said they support the president. Chandler famously fought in the co-main event at the Madison Square Garden event right after Trump’s election.
Yes, Trump is very excited
Trump seems stoked. In May, the president hosted the four fighters competing in the two main-event fights in the Oval Office.
“As you know, June 14. We’re having a big fight,” Trump said. “It’s never gonna happen again. Never happened before. And it’s all of the best fighters, best four fighters standing right behind me, and all champions. And it is gonna happen right in front of the White House.”
“These are real warriors,” he said of the fighters behind him. “They really love the sport,” he continued later. “They come out of a ring, the most incredible fight you’ve ever seen. And they say this is the greatest sport … you know, I’d rather sink a three-footer personally. But there’s no better thing to watch than this.”
Trump’s love for bloodsport is genuine. He shows up to UFC fights consistently in both Florida and New York, and he’ll be completely in his element during the June 14 event.
He is also set to personally profit from the event
Huffpost reported that Trump purchased somewhere between $15,000 and $50,000 worth of stock in TKO Holdings, the parent company that owns the UFC, the WWE, and several other combat sports or entertainment companies. TKO is, in turn, a subsidiary of the WME Group, a massive sports and entertainment conglomerate that has a hand in everything from Hollywood talent agencies to college sports conferences. Trump purchased the stock as he was actively promoting the UFC event at the White House. The UFC is allegedly footing the bill for the event, but it’s clear that Trump is banking on it still being a massive PR win for the company and a strong sign of the continued favor of certain conglomerates under Trump’s administration.
What has the UFC said about the event?
The funny thing about the White House event is how much was left up to the UFC. In the Rolling Stone Interview, White described how the event came to be:
“We’re at a fight, and he looks at me in the middle of the fight and says, ‘You know what? We should do a fight at the White House.’ And I’m like, ‘Yes, you should do a fight at the White House.’ White said. “I don’t know if you’ll ever meet anybody more proud of the White House than he is. He absolutely loves that place and he feels like it’s America’s house, and we should do things where more people can come to the White House and be able to experience it.”
But after that, it was sort of the UFC’s show. The company is allegedly footing the bill for the show itself — tickets are free, but spots on the South Lawn itself are one of the hottest invites in Washington. Behind the scenes, Republican lawmakers and bigwig conservative donors are jockeying for a limited number of seats. White thinks that Trump might actually regret causing such a stir — but that no matter what, the show must go on.
“To have the opportunity to fight at the White House — we’re in,” White said. “[With everything going on,] he probably wishes he didn’t say that to me. But again, we’re in. It’s happening. Everything’s in motion. He’s never said anything to me like that, but this guy’s dealing with shit that people like you and I can’t even imagine and don’t want to.”
The stage is enormous
The physical venue for the fight is perhaps one of the most controversial aspects of the entire event. UFC fights require a substantial amount of infrastructure to hold both the octagon cage and the lighting and camera rigs needed for a broadcast. To accommodate that on the open-air South Lawn, White has had a massive arch constructed in Pennsylvania and shipped to D.C., which is now going in place over the lawn, right next to Trump’s half-destroyed East Wing, future site of the White House ballroom.
The South Lawn will only hold about 4,000 fans. Sponsorship packages for those seats (which are “technically free,”) are reportedly going for as much as $1.5 million for a ringside view.
Everyone else, meanwhile, will be in the Ellipse, across the street from the South Lawn, where the UFC plans to have a massive watch party. Attendees won’t be able to see the fight in person, but they’ll be in a makeshift arena watching on jumbotrons. The UFC will also host a free “fan fest” event the day before the fights, Saturday, June 13. Fans won’t have to pay for either of those experiences, but they will need tickets, which have already mostly been claimed online. For those not in Washington, the fights will stream on Paramount+, which acquired the exclusive rights to stream the UFC in a massive, $7.7 billion deal last August. Trump-friendly David Ellison bought Paramount just weeks before locking down the UFC for the next seven years.
The event’s press conference will take place at the Lincoln Memorial on June 12. The main event will kick off at 8 p.m. on Sunday, June 14 — prime time on the president’s birthday.
The South Lawn will be full of active duty military members
The Washington Post reported that Pete Hegseth’s Department of Defense is looking for active duty military members to attend the fights on the South Lawn. There’s a catch, though: service members must pay their own way to the fights, and they can only go if they meet a certain physical standard. Attendees “MUST MEET CURRENT WAIST-HEIGHT RATIO and current physical fitness standard,” the Post reported, noting that social media posts about the opportunity told the selected attendees to wear their short-sleeve dress uniforms.
The military and the UFC have a long history. Fighters regularly traveled on morale tours to visit troops stationed in the Middle East, and several active and former service members have competed at UFC events over the years. But stocking the South Lawn’s quickly constructed stands with men and women in uniform probably has more to do with Trump’s personal idea of good optics than it does the UFC’s relationship to the troops.
