Fight Night at the White House

White and Trump person been aligned for rather immoderate time. In his interrogation with Remnick, White called the President “one of my very, precise bully friends,” and commended him arsenic a “Day One fan” of the U.F.C., who played an instrumental relation successful legitimatizing the sport. (Trump began hosting U.F.C. fights astatine the Taj Mahal successful Atlantic City successful 2001, the aforesaid twelvemonth that White came connected arsenic a portion owner; the enactment has since been sold to Ari Emanuel’s TKO Group Holdings.) Some reports person questioned this narrative, suggesting the narration betwixt the 2 men turned genuinely cozy lone aft Trump became President, for purely transactional reasons. But immoderate the case, the relation has been notable for agelong capable that erstwhile Trump announced past summertime that, to commemorate America’s two-hundred-and-fiftieth anniversary, the U.F.C. would clasp a combat paper connected the White House’s South Lawn, it shouldn’t person been overmuch of a surprise.

It shouldn’t person been, and yet, I’ll admit, it was, and my astonishment intensified arsenic the preparations for the UFC Freedom 250 lawsuit began. (Originally meant to instrumentality spot connected the Fourth of July, it was aboriginal pushed up to June 14th, to coincide with Trump’s eightieth birthday.) It each began with the tremendous stars-and-stripes-adorned operation called the Claw, each but dwarfing the White House, nether which thousands of punters fortunate capable to ticker the paper play retired successful the Octagon would convene. Then, connected Friday night, determination was a property league astatine the Lincoln Memorial, wherever the fourteen fighters competing successful the card’s 7 fights shit-talked 1 another—with a singular unanimity of metaphor—under the watchful oculus of Honest Abe and respective crypto.com banners. (“I’m gonna instrumentality his lights retired successful the archetypal round,” Ilia Topuria, the trim-bearded Georgian Spanish lightweight, said of his opponent. “I gotta enactment his lights out—that’s arsenic elemental arsenic that,” the pink-haired, face-tatted American bantamweight Sean O’Malley said, of his foe.) This was followed by the authoritative weigh-in for media outlets connected Saturday morning, successful which the American heavyweight Josh Hokit, who’s known for taking connected a assortment of clownish personas, spit up what looked similar vomit each implicit his ample chest-piece tattoo arsenic helium stepped onstage. (“So what, possibly I was drinking past night,” helium mumbled.) And connected Saturday nighttime came another, ceremonial, weigh-in, hosted by the podcaster Joe Rogan—“We’ve got a banging paper for you, ladies and gentlemen, astatine the White House!”—who, with his bald pate, explosively worked-out muscles, and affinity for choky T-shirts, could walk for White’s twin. (This is acold from the pair’s lone link. As White told Remnick, helium was the 1 to transportation Rogan to endorse Trump connected his amusement successful the lead-up to the 2024 Presidential election.)

All this chest-thumping and showboating was truthful implicit the apical that erstwhile I sat down to ticker the existent event, which streamed unrecorded connected Paramount Plus connected Sunday night, I wasn’t definite however overmuch much I could take. But arsenic it turned out, determination was a batch yet to come. The fights were somewhat delayed due to the fact that of inclement weather, and truthful we were treated, first, to a quartet of chattering analysts wearing natty, snug suits. As Guns N’ Roses’ “Sweet Child O’ Mine” played vaguely successful the distance, the M.M.A. champ Chris Weidman remarked, “As an American, I haven’t felt that benignant of patriotism successful my life.” The U.F.C. is thing of an planetary affair—Brazilians, Irishmen, Georgians, Dagestanis—but the expert Brendan Fitzgerald took attraction to guarantee us, earlier the enactment got nether way, that astir each combat connected the Freedom 250 paper would diagnostic astatine slightest 1 American.

As the lawsuit yet got disconnected the ground, what I felt, much than American pride, though, was a benignant of dislocation and overwhelm, arsenic if I’d abruptly fallen into a K-hole. The gait of the proceedings was hypercharged, and truthful galore random things were happening astatine specified a accelerated clip that I could lone beryllium back, dazed. There was Trump, stone-faced successful a navy suit, greeting the assemblage from the White House balcony with Dana White, who was wearing a brace of black-and-white sneakers; determination was a subject flyover; determination was the Joint Armed Forces Color Guard, dressed successful their ceremonial dark-blue uniforms; determination was the state vocalist Zac Brown of the Zac Brown Band, stuffed into a boldly pin-striped suit, singing the National Anthem inside the Octagon, with the red-coated United States Marine Band accompanying him; determination were the crowd’s occasional but enthusiastic chants of “U.S.A.! U.S.A.!”; determination were Mark Zuckerberg and David Ellison and Ari Emanuel (and his wife, the decorator Sarah Staudinger, successful an animal-print dress), and the comedians Tony Hinchcliffe and Shane Gillis, not to notation Melania and Barron, Ivanka and Jared, and Donald Trump, Jr., with his caller bride, Bettina; determination was Joe Rogan, successful a shiny, wide grey tie, marvelling forcefully astatine the “energy” successful the air; determination were Medal of Honor recipients, astatine slightest a mates of them successful wheelchairs, who were invited arsenic a amusement of acknowledgment for their service, and who flanked the fighters arsenic they did their walk-ons; determination was a clip of President Reagan talking astir Flag Day; determination were Octagon Girls, dressed successful form-fitting stars-and-stripes-themed outfits, and the Octagon and the Claw’s blinking and flashing lights and screens, and a full clump of inheritance music, from a screen mentation of AC/DC’s “Thunderstruck” to Deep Purple’s “Smoke connected the Water,” Hulk Hogan’s taxable song, and Drake’s “Started from the Bottom” (there was 1 Canadian fighter). And determination was advertising, truthful overmuch advertising, some popping up perpetually connected my laptop surface astatine home, arsenic the lawsuit streamed, and besides appearing connected each disposable aboveground of the Octagon itself. Ads for Monster Energy portion (“The Beast Unleashed”) and Starlink net and Meta and Jose Cuervo tequila and Bud Light and Polymarket betting and, again, crypto.com—the slew of progressively indispensable garbage that we arsenic Americans present beryllium connected for enactment and leisure and, sometimes, vice. It was jarring and depressing to spot the White House looming there, successful specified proximity to each of it, particularly since the products being hawked included Trump Coins and Truth Social (“the existent dependable of President Trump”).