The UFC has packed many of the biggest arenas, but the card competitors wanted to be on most was the one with the worst conditions, the smallest crowd and huge logistical nightmares.
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Of all the places the Ultimate Fighting Championship has staged events, the White House might be the least suitable. The temporary arena for UFC Freedom 250 sits outdoors on the White House’s South Lawn, covered only by a canopy barely bigger than the octagon itself.
If it rains, as forecast, the fighters may be sloshing through puddles of blood and sweat. And even if the octagon does not become a giant Slip ’N Slide, the swampy night air will soak the fighters. Not to mention the gnats and mosquitoes.
And yet the UFC’s fighters have been begging for months to be there. Two of the organization’s greatest champions, Jon Jones and Conor McGregor, neither of whom have fought in years, both said they’d return just to be on the White House card. (Neither was given a spot.) Sean O’Malley, who will fight Sunday, recently said on social media that he told the UFC he’d fight anybody, as long as it was at the White House.
The UFC has held fight cards in most of the world’s biggest indoor arenas, including Madison Square Garden and the Sphere in Las Vegas. But the card many of the UFC’s fighters have wanted most is the one with the worst conditions, the smallest crowd and mountains of logistical nightmares. Getting to fight in the backyard of arguably the western world’s most important building, it turns out, outweighs any wrench the night’s unorthodox setup might throw their way.
“We get to walk from the Oval Office to the White House lawn!” O’Malley said with wonder, describing the path each fighter will take to the octagon on Sunday night.
Many of the best mixed martial arts fighters come from small towns or little money. Last fall, when the White House card was still largely a fascination of President Donald Trump’s, Ed Soares, a manager for Alex Pereira, one of the UFC’s top fighters, stood watching Pereira practice and whispered to a visitor, “The fight we want is the White House.”
Soares went on to explain that Pereira had grown up with little money in a rough part of São Paulo, Brazil, quitting school as a teenager to work in a tire store. Who could have seen a kid in a Brazilian tire store some day fighting on the White House lawn?
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But there was something else, too.
“The White House event is going to be big,” Soares said that day.
Pereira is Sunday night’s co-headliner, fighting for the first time as a heavyweight, trying to become the first UFC fighter to win titles in three weight classes.
Despite the small arena of only about 4,300 seats on the White House lawn, the UFC and its fighters believe the television audience on Paramount+ will be bigger than for any of the organization’s previous pay-per-view shows. They imagine a public fascinated by the idea of MMA fighting at the White House, and they know Trump’s presence will draw attention good and bad. They want to be a part of that.
“Let’s take my American patriotism out of it, let’s take my love for the country out of it,” lightweight Michael Chandler, who will fight Sunday, said this week. “When you get into the sport, mixed martial arts, when you get into any sport, you want the biggest platforms possible, the most amount of viewers, the most amount of eyeballs, the highest stakes, the brightest lights.”
Chandler comes from a town of around 4,000 people south of St. Louis and had to walk on to the wrestling team at the University of Missouri.
“This is the top of my professional career,” he said, “fighting on the White House, or by the White House lawn for America’s 250th birthday.”
Though Trump typically finds a receptive crowd at UFC events, he’s not the reason most fighters cite for their enthusiasm for Sunday’s card. Some have said they are intrigued by the idea of the president watching them fight, and at least one of the 14 fighting on Sunday, middleweight Bo Nickal, has built a friendship with Trump. But most said they are more attracted by the awe of being at the White House and a huge television audience.
“This is a testament to what the UFC has become,” said Daniel Cormier, a former UFC champion and now one of the organization’s television commentators. “You got to remember this is a sport that back in the mid ’90s they didn’t know if they would ever get on pay-per-view. They were in Biloxi, Mississippi, fighting in front of 2,000 people. [Now] they’re setting up an octagon on the South Lawn at the White House.”
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