If you found it bizarre, surreal and downright flabbergasting to witness the spectacle of the Ultimate Fighting Championship holding a massive event on the White House lawn, with sweaty men being escorted from the Oval Office to a glowing octagon to go punch each other as the president and his war cabinet cheered them on, you were not alone. You should know that the fighters and many people in the U.F.C. appeared to feel the same way. Maybe even more so.
“I have seen some surreal things in my life — this is the most surreal. It doesn’t seem real. None of it seems real. It’s so crazy,” said Joe Rogan, the color analyst on the broadcast, almost hyperventilating, as President Trump walked out at the beginning of the event, alongside the U.F.C. chief executive Dana White. The former U.F.C. champion Daniel Cormier said: “I just can’t believe that we’re at the White House, watching U.F.C. fights. Dude, I’m so filled with, like, testosterone, I want to kick someone in the chest, it’s crazy.”
The night, billed as U.F.C. Freedom 250, was certainly filled with testosterone, and it was, in fact, crazy. The cognitive dissonance of seeing the foundational symbols of our country, where presidents traditionally greet foreign heads of state and host the annual Easter Egg Roll, used as the backdrop for a series of cage matches — and, of course, to celebrate the president’s 80th birthday — was something that was commented on constantly by almost everyone involved, though it seemed to bother them less than it probably did your local governmental ethics professor.
In many ways, the sight of blood-spattered U.F.C. fighters kicking and punching each other was less jarring than seeing them do it while members of the military stood by and saluted the fighters. The U.F.C. crew may have felt like barbarian invaders at the gates of democracy, but they also may have been behaving better and more ethically than the family they were there to entertain and ostensibly honor.
Shortly before the event, Mr. Cormier posted on social media (and quickly deleted) a purported direct message exchange he had with Eric Trump that seemed to feature the president’s son asking if any of the fights were fixed, and if so, if Mr. Cormier could give him some insider tips. The junior Trump heir denied this happened, as did Mr. Cormier. The whole off-camera incident, playing out online even as the televised event unfolded, spoke to what was perhaps the most disturbing — and most telling — element of the whole spectacle: The chaotic energy being generated by the brawling U.F.C. guests could not match the chaotic energy generated by their White House hosts.
One of the stranger, though beguiling, aspects of the evening was watching the United States Marine Band, which has performed for every president since John Adams, play the entrance music for each fighter. This included the cheesy ’80s anthem “Real American,” popularized by Hulk Hogan; AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck”; and, remarkably, the entrance song for the heavyweight fighter Derrick Lewis, “Tops Drop” by the ’90s-era underground Houston hip-hop legend Fat Pat.
Mr. Lewis’s presence at the event deserves further unpacking. He’s a former college football player who lost his scholarship when he was sentenced to prison after violating the probation for an aggravated assault charge. After his release, he channeled that aggression into mixed martial arts, where he became known for unusually violent knockouts and was given the nickname “The Black Beast.”
Mr. Lewis, at 41, is far past his prime and would not ordinarily be included on a U.F.C. card as high-profile as this one, but he was, according to Mr. White, added at the request of the president himself. Mr. Trump has said that Mr. Lewis, a longtime Trump supporter, is one of his favorite fighters. At U.F.C. Freedom 250, Mr. Lewis wound up getting soundly pummeled by a fighter named Josh Hokit, who at the weigh-in the day before had pretended to vomit on himself. Mr. Hokit celebrated his second-round TKO by exiting the ring, handing Mr. Trump a medallion necklace (which the president immediately put on) and, in his post-fight interview, yelling, “Michelle Obama is a man! Am I right, America?” So perhaps Mr. Trump now has a new favorite fighter.
The president looked legitimately delighted to greet each fighter. It may, in fact, have been all a birthday boy could have possibly wanted: to see all his favorite toys punch each other in his honor. One does wonder if some of that time might have been better served hashing out the finer points of a preliminary agreement to end the war with Iran — a deal that was announced by Mr. Trump on Truth Social before the event. The reported details changed repeatedly throughout the night, even as the Middle East envoy Steve Witkoff and Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth sat in attendance at the event alongside Mr. Trump.
You can tell it was his birthday because he definitely got presents. The “sponsor” of the Hokit-Lewis match was announced as “Truth Social, the real voice of President Trump,” and that was pretty demure product placement, comparatively speaking. Whatever your thoughts on the U.F.O.-like arena constructed on the lawn, called “the Claw,” or the Ellipse’s being used as a mosh pit of shirtless dudes, the evening’s most jarring use of American public property was how every inch of the arena, which loomed with garish menace in front of the White House, was converted into a relentlessly scrolling billboard of corporate sponsors, many which benefit Mr. Trump and his family directly.
Crypto.com was particularly prevalent — every fighter’s warm-up jersey had Crypto.com emblazoned across it. You also couldn’t miss Polymarket, Total Wireless, CrowdStrike, Riyadh Season, Ram trucks (whose primary ad featured Mr. White, the U.F.C. chief executive, who sat next to Mr. Trump all evening, screaming “Liberty is loud, baby!” while driving a truck) and Trump Coins, which offered commemorative coins with Mr. Trump’s face on them and his signature, which the Trump Coins website notes is a facsimile. The coins sold for as much as $12,000.
The event was described beforehand as “the most historic sporting event of all time,” which is an odd way to describe something that hasn’t happened yet. But the credo spoke to the inescapable sense that everyone involved on Sunday night seemed to believe that this was not a one-off anomaly. As the evening went on, you could see both the U.F.C. and the government brass begin to puff their chests out a bit, as the chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.! U.S.A.!” grew louder and louder. The message was clear: This is the kind of spectacle that everyone in attendance wanted, and despite Mr. White’s having said he could not afford to do this kind of event again, if they have their way, this is just the beginning.
“This is the next chapter in America’s fighting spirit story,” the U.F.C. broadcaster Brendan Fitzgerald said with a big goofy smile that implied he knew something we didn’t. Perhaps he could see the future, and that future looks a lot like this. It was so crazy. It made you want to kick someone in the chest.
Will Leitch is a contributing editor at New York magazine and the author of the novels “How Lucky” and “Lloyd McNeil’s Last Ride,” as well as The Will Leitch Newsletter.
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