One of my earliest memories of Donald Trump is his claymation iteration. There he was in 1999, crudely animated, facing off against the boxing promoter Don King during an episode of Celebrity Deathmatch, the stop-motion MTV series that featured clay renderings of celebrities killing one another in a boxing ring.
Like anyone else watching at the time, I couldn’t have anticipated that the man behind the clay would one day become president—twice. Nor could anyone have predicted that Trump’s ties to cage matches, more of an enthusiasm, would endure for decades, culminating in the UFC Freedom 250, the mixed martial arts fights set to take over the White House on June 14 in honor of America’s 250th and Trump’s 80th birthdays. The entire concept seems absurd, especially when you see the violence they’ve committed to the South Lawn. But the UFC and its CEO Dana White have been key players in MAGA’s rise. All of which makes me wonder: Would we even have a Trump presidency without the Ultimate Fighting Championship?
“The UFC and Dana White arguably helped Trump get elected,” said Kyle Green, a sociologist at SUNY Brockport who writes on the intersection of sports and politics. “They put him in contact with Joe Rogan, who puts him in contact with all the other podcast bros. That really helped Trump, especially in the last election.” Likewise, Green said, the UFC can attribute much of its newfound mainstream popularity to having a fan in the White House.
Though the mutually beneficial—and potentially corrupt—relationship goes back decades, Green said that recently, two distinct tipping points solidified the Trump-UFC alliance we have today: Covid, when the UFC bucked shutdown protocols and became the first to host a major sports event, a move that earned public praise from the president, and the January 6 attack on the US Capitol.
“That could have been a moment where the UFC breaks with him,” Green said. “Instead, they invited Trump to a match and let him do the walkout.”
But could a White House stage and UFC’s intimate ties to Trump end up hurting the UFC in the end? I talked to Green about the political risks, MMA’s evolution in the public consciousness, and Trump’s long fandom of combat sports.
Let’s start with the basics. What are the differences between boxing and mixed martial arts?
MMA is a combination of all the different martial arts, whether it’s techniques from boxing, wrestling, karate, and so forth. In the fight itself, you can kick, punch, elbow. You can also grab the person, take them to the ground, and you win by either forcing them to give up, whether it’s through choking or bending their arm far behind their back. Or you could win by knocking the person unconscious, like in boxing.
One of the key features I read in researching MMA is that you‘re allowed to pummel your opponent when they’re already down. Why is that so controversial?
It’s controversial because of the aesthetics, and because we have long been taught that combat should look like boxing or karate, where [punching someone when they’re down] isn’t allowed. It’s seen as a dirtier tactic or as one more associated with a schoolyard fight than with an actual professional event. But this is a pretty Western approach to combat. Things that look like MMA have long been popular in Japan and Brazil. In the United States and Western Europe, [punching someone when they’re down] is not viewed as a gentlemanly way to fight. The idea of kicking or punching your opponent when they’re down looks more brutal, and so it’s aesthetically more violent for public consumption.
Yes, it’s a violent act. But it’s a bit complicated too. In boxing, a person gets knocked down, and then they have a count where they have the ability to get back up and keep fighting. But when you look at brain damage, what happens in boxing is actually worse because when you have a chance to recover, you get hit more. In MMA or the UFC, you get knocked down, you don’t have a chance to recover because the person gets on top of you, hits you some more, or they choke you, and the fight’s immediately done. So, yes, MMA might be aesthetically a lot worse. But in boxing, which doesn’t have as much bleeding or cuts, there is more brain damage.
Have people died?
No. No one has died in the UFC or a major promotional MMA event.
“White’s trying to strategize a way to amass the most power and money, and he’s played it well up to this point by attaching himself to Trump. But there’s a limit to that.”
What do you think about the weigh-in happening at the Lincoln Memorial?
So, the official weigh-in is in the morning, and that’s where fighters actually step on the scale. At the Lincoln Memorial, that’s where they’ll face off for the crowds and do a symbolic step on the scale, pose, make muscles, and then intimidate each other before the actual fight—just like Lincoln wanted.
It’s absurd. This is coming from me, a fan since it arrived in the United States in 1993, who has long watched the sport with my brother, a wrestler, and my dad. We would sit down, and we’d watch every single event. I paid attention to it as it went from this subculture that most people didn’t know about to what it is today. So, I’m not an outsider looking at it and being like, “Oh, that’s stupid, I hate the aesthetic of it.”
I don’t think any professional sport should be presented in this way, but especially with what this sport represents, it’s not something that should be there.
What does the sport represent?
Cultural forms can take on different meanings, but this is associated fundamentally with fighting. People argue about whether it should be considered violence because it’s consensual: two people entering a space, and they’re in agreement about what they’re going to do. What is too much? You’re trying out different techniques with each other.
However, if you go to a bar where people are watching the UFC, they’re just screaming for blood, screaming for the knockout. That’s what sells. How people sell fights now in the lead-up to a fight is one of the biggest shifts that’s happened in MMA. It’s leaned more into the professional wrestling model, where people just insult each other, insult their parents, their girlfriends, their religion.
Can you give me an example?
For example, a fight just happened where Sean Strickland, who’s one of the more despicable characters in the UFC, said extremely racist things in the lead-up to a fight. After the fight, he says, “Hey, sorry, you know, I was just selling it to you guys.” Now, I don’t know if that’s true or not, but either way, that’s the thing that promotes the fight now.
There’s also Josh Hokit, who’s going to fight on the [White House card]. People who know him from his days as a college wrestler say he’s just playing a character in the UFC. But when he gets in front of the mic now, he wears an American flag bandana, and he says that he wants to kick Mexicans out of the country, or he’ll say that he wants to beat up transgender people, that Brittney Griner is a man. He’ll say the most offensive things, leaning into the MAGA fan base. Again, I don’t know if he believes it or not. But it doesn’t really matter, right? Because that’s the thing that sells.
Do you trace some of that amped up smack talk to Trump?
I think Trump has enabled it, and that’s how I think about it outside of the UFC. We see people, whether it’s online or on the street, much more willing to say racist and sexist things. I don’t think he caused it, but I think he’s enabled it. What fighters have to do now, [taunting and smack-talking], is, in part, because the UFC labour model is a really grotesque one, in that fighters are technically independent contractors with very few protections and rights. It’s very different from boxing, where they have the Muhammad Ali Act.
Crucially, UFC is actually trying to get into boxing right now. They’ve started what’s called Zuffa Boxing and are working with Saudi Arabian money to reform the Muhammad Ali Act to get rid of some of those protections. How? Dana White’s influence on Donald Trump, who influences the Senate, where they are currently deciding about reforming the Muhammad Ali Act.
President Trump has had a longstanding relationship to combat sports. What do you think it is about MMA, boxing, and WWE that appeals to him? Smack talk?
In terms of his relationship to WWE, it’s the bravado and smack talk of playing a character. One of Trump’s biggest skills is being able to perform, and that’s what WWE is. There’s also the central masculinity to this thing that he’s attracted to. Boxing has always been the place of celebrity, and that’s what Trump is good at, right? It’s a bunch of rich people hanging out, watching the spectacle in front of them, before they can get pictures with the fighters after the fight. Boxing has always been the sport associated with wealth and celebrity. So Trump has always been involved in that way.
Now, there’s been an interesting thing happening with Trump and the UFC: As Dana White and Donald Trump’s alliance has gotten stronger, they’re trying to change the story and act like Trump was so essential to the rise of the UFC. But that’s not true. Initially, the UFC would host events wherever they could. After Zuffa bought UFC and [became its parent company in 2001], I think their first event was at a Donald Trump-owned casino. But if [Trump] hadn’t been there, they would have just gone to a different casino. Later, Trump even ended up being involved with a rival MMA organization.
Does President Trump strike you as a genuine fan of the sport? Or is this more of an extension of the mutually beneficial relationship Dana White and Trump have?
I think he’s a genuine fan. Dana White and Trump, in my mind, share very similar understandings of how the world works and how politics works. They’re both transactional and seek power.
In a recent interview, Dana White tried to claim that he was center to the left in politics. I think he calls himself that in the sense that he’s surrounded by a lot of people who are very conservative in terms of religion, sexuality, and immigration. But he’s conservative in the sense that he doesn’t believe in the rights of the worker, and that he doesn’t believe in regulation from the government or from athletic commissions, and that he’s very willing to make deals with Saudi Arabia or the Chechen dictator or someone like Trump, or just wants to amass more power and influence.
I think White’s politics are fundamentally transactional. He’s trying to strategize a way to amass the most power and money, and he’s played it well up to this point by attaching himself to Trump. But there’s a limit to that. So he’s trying to figure out how to not offend Trump supporters, but still strike a balance in order to attract new fans. He’s leaned very heavily into saying, “I’m apolitical, sports are not political.” And he’s doing this while, at least I would argue, UFC has become the most overtly political of all sports.
“A bunch of the core fanbase is struggling right now. For some of them, they’re like, ‘I can’t watch this anymore.’”
The upcoming fight at the White House is arguably UFC’s most high-profile moment. Do UFC’s close ties to MAGA help or hurt MMA?
It helps the UFC and Zuffa gain political power and break down the Muhammad Ali Act. They’ve had several class-action lawsuits against them; this helps them avoid having to increase fighter pay. If we believe what Dana White and Trump are saying, the UFC is paying for this, right? And White has said that he’s going to lose millions with this fight, with the construction and everything. But they’re getting a lot of political power.
Still, I don’t think the White House fight is going to get new fans. I honestly don’t. If I were trying to introduce you to MMA and convince you why it’s a really cool thing, I would not show you the White House fight. Instead, I’d introduce you to Anderson Silva, this incredible fighter who fought in a beautiful, graceful manner, who never won through brute strength, but through technique. I would show you something like that, instead of something we can only associate now with Donald Trump.
A bunch of the core fanbase is struggling right now. And the central question we’re asking them is, what does this do to your fandom? For some of them, they’re like, “I can’t watch this anymore.”
“I don’t think it’s a mistake that [the White House] is the only card in the UFC without any women fighting on it. Not just this year, but last year and the year before that.”
There seems to be a major emphasis on appearances with this card. The physical requirements for troops. Dana White’s focus on the White House as the backdrop. Is UFC veering into more superficial territory?
I don’t think in terms of the fights themselves. Some people argue that the fights have actually become more boring in recent years, because as fighters get better, the styles become a little bit more homogeneous, and there are fewer knockouts than in the past. But as the fights get less exciting, there’s more and more attention to how you sell yourself before the fight.
Colby Covington is a famous example of this. He’s a wrestler with a very technical wrestling style. But doesn’t do much damage. That’s a challenge in the UFC, because they have this independent contractor model, where organizers choose who gets the title fight; there isn’t a clear system. So Colby Covington was winning over and over, but he was seen as a boring fighter and wasn’t getting rewarded by the UFC until he started presenting this over-the-top professional wrestling character that leans into being a fan of Donald Trump. And as he starts insulting all the people on the left, he gets more promotion and ends up with a title fight.
This is a place with a fixation on strength and appearance. But it’s also overlapping with Trump, and Trump likes a guy who projects masculinity on a superficial level. Like, Pete Hegseth is in that position because he looks like a person who should be in that position. MMA is an interesting place, because it’s one of the few sports where you can have two women fighters headline a card and men underneath them, meaning they get the prime position. I don’t think it’s a mistake that [the White House] is the only card in the UFC without any women fighting on it. Not just this year, but last year and the year before that. They just want the traditional version of what they see as feminine.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.