{"id":3829,"date":"2026-06-15T11:05:09","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:05:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=3829"},"modified":"2026-06-15T11:05:09","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T11:05:09","slug":"a-most-american-fight-night","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movinginsiderusa.com\/?p=3829","title":{"rendered":"A most American fight night"},"content":{"rendered":"

I guess this is what we\u2019re doing now.<\/strong><\/p>\n

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Michael Chandler waits in the Grand Foyer of the White House before his lightweight bout against Brazil’s Mauricio Ruffy during UFC Freedom 250 on the South Lawn of the White House. (Saul Loeb\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

The phrase \u201cPlatonic ideal\u201d refers to the philosopher\u2019s conception that real life and meaning exist on an abstract spiritual plain beyond our physical existence and comprehension. You think you have seen a donkey, say, but no, you have only seen a shadow of a donkey \u2014 a hypothetical representation. You cannot even begin to comprehend the real thing. All of us go through life like dogs seeing in muted colors, not knowing what we\u2019re missing, except on Sunday night when anyone with a subscription to Paramount+ was allowed to experience the Platonic ideal of what it means to be an American in 2026, the real donkey, and it was a UFC fight on the White House lawn.<\/p>

Read more Inside the Trump administration\u2019s rapid rollback of gun regulations<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s only one person more incredible than the Incredible Hulk, and that\u2019s my Lord and savior Jesus Christ,\u201d brayed Josh Hokit in his victory speech after winning his heavyweight bout in the event labeled, insanely, Freedom 250. \u201cAnd lastly, Michelle Obama is a man.\u201d<\/p>\n

Cool.<\/p>\n

I feel the need, before continuing further, to make it clear that I actually have no problem with the concept of mixed martial arts at the White House. I don\u2019t know where any of you were when Conor MacGregor challenged Floyd Mayweather in a landmark 2017 boxing crossover, but I was hosting a pay-per-view pizza party at my house. I have watched the early 1990s matches, the ones where a dude in a karate gi would challenge a dude in a sumo mawashi to ostensibly determine the best martial art. MMA is a deeply violent sport, and always has been. But there\u2019s artistry to the fight, and discipline, a body pushing itself to limits that are simultaneously sickening and exhilarating.<\/p>\n

But the Ultimate Fighting Championship event that happened on Sunday night was not a celebration of a sport, it was a celebration of slop. It was a pseudo-patriotic grift that tried to convince us that fighters wheel-kicking each other for the chance of $1 million in crypto deserved the same level of hero admiration as the boys who launched onto the beach at Normandy; it was an infomercial that paused every seven seconds to advertise Starlink internet or Starry soda or Ram trucks or flavors of Monster energy drink that God forgot.<\/p>\n

It was \u201cthe next chapter of America\u2019s fighting story,\u201d an announcer intoned over footage and images of historic battles, as if the Declaration of Independence was brought to you by the less popular Musket company and a knockoff beverage everyone drank because they threw their tea off of boats. As if William Tecumseh Sherman captured Atlanta and then raised his weary head to whisper, \u201cIt\u2019s up to you, Bo Nickal. Go to Washington and use an arm bar. For the Union.\u201d<\/p>\n

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UFC Freedom 250 is seen on the South Lawn of the White House. (Kevin Dietsch\/Reuters)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

The octagon ring \u2014 \u201cThe Claw\u201d \u2014 was set up on the White House lawn. The president and first lady sat in the front row. The U.S. Marine Band, long known as \u201cThe President\u2019s Own,\u201d soundtracked the whole event, in what was surely its weirdest gig of the season, and bless Staff Sgt. Hannah Davis, a young Black woman, for listening to that disgusting statement about Michelle Obama and then immediately singing \u201cSuperstar\u201d so Sean O\u2019Malley could punch Aiemann Zahabi for five minutes.<\/p>\n

The fighters all emerged for their bouts from various historic rooms in the White House wearing track suits or shower slides, each like a tourist who was just trying to catch up with their groups but who instead had to fight a man who had accused him, days earlier, of \u201csitting around and smelling his own farts.\u201d<\/p>\n

Throughout the night, announcers and commentators marveled out loud some variation of, \u201cI can\u2019t believe they let us in the White House.\u201d It sounded boyishly enthusiastic the first time or two, but by the eighth or ninth time you really started to wonder if there was something they weren\u2019t telling us. Should <\/i>you be in the White House? Did your background check miss something?<\/p>\n

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Diego Lopes walks out of the White House for a featherweight bout against Steve Garcia. (Al Drago\/Getty via AP)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

At one point the program involved a rebroadcast of Ronald Reagan\u2019s 1986 Flag Day address played along with what certainly looked like AI depictions of American historical events, including a baby\u2019s hand sewing an American flag.<\/p>

Read more How AI is changing political advertising<\/a><\/p>\n

What do we make of any of this other than that this is America? Bring me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses advertising Bud Light and trucks. \u201cIn Loud We Trust.\u201d Bring me your ring girls dressed skimpily in sequined stars and stripes, and your men with cauliflower ears, and a bunch of sailors dancing to \u201cYMCA.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Fans react as they watch from the Ellipse. (Matt McClain\/Reuters)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

Make this all happen at the beginning of Washington, D.C.\u2019s pride celebration so that you can watch two men wrap their legs around one another, press their sweaty, heaving chests together and wonder whether you are ticketed for the correct event.<\/p>\n

The problem isn\u2019t the fighting on the lawn. People who love the UFC have had to sit through decades of presidents inviting poets and cellists and opera singers to the White House, and turnabout is fair play.<\/p>\n

The problem with Sunday\u2019s broadcast wasn\u2019t the fighting. The problem was the tonally incoherent emulsion of patriotism and bloodlust, history and buy-this-crap, an event happening for the people but tucked behind a Paramount+ paywall. We have always been a violent country, but have we always been such a shameless one?<\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
Bantamweight fighter Sean O’Malley speaks with President Donald Trump after defeating Aiemann Zahabi. (Bonnie Cash\/for The Washington Post)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>\n

The final fight of the evening was a title match between American Justin Gaethje and Georgian-Spanish Ilia Topuria. It was an absolute massacre. Blood poured from Topuria as he staggered around the octagon, eyes nearly swollen shut, as announcers ecstatically shouted phrases like \u201cAbsolutely battered!\u201d and \u201cHuge protrusion.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Gaethje was declared the winner, the octagon was swarmed with Trump progeny, Ivanka and Baron and Don Jr., impeccably dressed and meandering around a ring saturated with spilled blood.<\/p>\n

Gaethje eventually wandered into the Green Room of the White House and plopped down in his sandals, naked from the waist up except for his prize belt and an American flag, to talk about his hometown in Arizona as a portrait of Edith Roosevelt looked down upon what the 21st century hath wrought.<\/p>\n

The Marine Band played \u201cStars and Stripes Forever.\u201d There were fireworks. This is America. \u201cIt was better,\u201d an announcer declared. \u201cIt was better than I actually could have imagined.\u201d<\/p>

Read more At G-7, allies plan for a world less reliant on the U.S.<\/a><\/p>\n

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\"\"<\/figure>\n\n
U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds and the U.S. Navy Blue Angels perform a flyover during the National Anthem. (Win Mcnamee\/AFP\/Getty Images)<\/figcaption>\n<\/figure>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The UFC extravaganza at the White House was not a celebration of a sport, it was a celebration of slop. 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