Ultimate Fighting Championship CEO Dana White confirmed Tuesday that an official UFC cage fight on the White House lawn in Washington, D.C. “is going to happen,” in what the Wall Street Journal columnist Jason Gay described as “surreal, unprecedented and maybe entirely predictable.”
“Fighters will be warming up in the White House,” said White, speaking with Gay. “It’s incredible.”
White and Trump have had a decades-long friendship, with Trump giving UFC its first major venue in 2001 at his Taj Mahal casino, which shut down in 2016 amid financial hardships. White has gone on to remain close with Trump, backing him in all three of his bids for president.
That loyalty now appears to have paid off with an official UFC fight in works to be held on the White House lawn, an event that Trump teased back in July, suggesting that the event could coincide with the United States’ 250th anniversary and host a crowd of 20,000 spectators.
The White House’s South Lawn, the larger of its two lawns, is about 16.5 acres, which Gay told White could pose a challenge for seating at the event. White, however, said spectator capacity for the fight was the least of his concerns.
“I don’t give a s— if there’s only one seat at this thing,” White told Gay. “This is so monumental and historical and just such a cool thing. All I care about is the Octagon on the lawn and the fight happening with the backdrop being the White House and the Washington Monument.”
The announcement comes in the wake of UFC landing a $7.7 billion deal with Paramount, a deal that was closely tied to Skydance's acquisition of Paramount, a merger that was approved by the Trump administration after Paramount paid the president $15 million to settle a lawsuit experts say was without merit.
