All posts tagged "Ufc"

Shane Gillis made it clear that he wasn't a fan of UFC fighter Josh Hokit insulting former First lady Michelle Obama while President Donald Trump had a different reaction.

The right-leaning comedian was leaving the UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House Sunday night when TMZ asked him what he thought about the false and offensive remark from the 28-year-old mixed martial arts athlete.

"Michelle Obama is a man! Am I right, America?” Hokit said inside the Octogon during an interview with Joe Rogan. The crowd booed and cheered — Trump apparently smiled while he sat ringside, CNN reported. ...

A wave of anger erupted online this weekend after U.S. military honor guards were spotted taking part in the run-up to President Donald Trump's UFC spectacle at the Lincoln Memorial.

The backlash took off after progressive commentator LanaQuest, who posts as RosaSparks, shared video of uniformed service members flanking the memorial's steps as UFC fighters made their entrance. "Those are Honor Guards?" she wrote. "I'm literally flabbergasted. The disrespect is off the charts."

The footage was real. According to the Daily Beast, several U.S. military honor guards appeared on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial during the UFC Freedom 250 press conference on June 12, as fighters strode past Abraham Lincoln's statue — a Getty Images photo confirmed the service members' presence at the commercial event....

An MS NOW host sounded the alarm early Sunday over one of the stranger wrinkles of President Donald Trump's UFC takeover of the White House: the administration handing a private company control over which journalists are allowed on the grounds.

Pointing to a Washington Post report, Jonathan Capehart noted that the White House press corps will be locked out during Sunday's cage fight on the South Lawn unless the UFC itself grants them credentials.

"This is highly unusual," the host said. "This has never happened."...

A Republican strategist argued on MS NOW this weekend that President Donald Trump's planned UFC fight at the White House is such a flop that he is racing to sign a weak deal with Iran just to knock it out of the headlines.

Susan Del Percio, a GOP strategist and MS NOW political analyst, made the case on "PoliticsNation" with Rev. Al Sharpton on Saturday, a day before Trump is set to host the first UFC bout on the White House lawn.

Asked whether the fight might win back supporters who have cooled on Trump's "America 250" celebration — the run-up to the country's 250th anniversary, which has been dogged by headline acts dropping out of its concert series — Del Percio said it would not....

The super agent who inspired HBO's "Entourage" is behind Trump's tough-guy image and UFC spectacle, according to an MMA writer.

Ari Emanuel, the brother of former Obama chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, is known as the basis for Jeremy Piven's character Ari Gold. Behind the scenes, he's also been bankrolling a yearslong effort to give Trump "macho cred," Nate Wilcox, who writes about Mixed Martial Arts and UFC, said in a recent interview.

According to Wilcox, Emanuel was Trump's agent, but he's also the chairman of TKO Group Holdings, the company that owns UFC. TKO is staging the upcoming UFC Freedom 250 event on the White House South Lawn....

A commercial airline pilot received a baffling response from the FAA after Trump's UFC lights blinded them while landing, MeidasTouch reported.

The pilot spoke anonymously about how powerful lights from the UFC octagon on the White House South Lawn filled the cockpit during a landing at Ronald Reagan Washington National Airport. It was "10 times worse than any laser illumination event," the pilot told MeidasTouch.

Landing an aircraft relies heavily on visual references, according to MeidasTouch. The pilot filed reports with the Federal Aviation Administration and NASA's Aviation Safety Reporting System....