Source : ABC NEWS
By the time Justin Gaethje was shaking hands with US President Donald Trump and fist-bumping Melania on the South Lawn, UFC boss Dana White had already made his mind up about the future of the event at the White House.
“It was an amazing, experience, this was a one-of-one,” the chief executive and president of the company said.
“It will never happen again.”
The show dubbed Freedom 250 and ostensibly held to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s signing was, by White’s accounts, a smashing success.
Despite only one of the seven fights — Gaethje’s lightweight title finale victory over Ilia Topuria — making it out of the second round, White crowed about merchandise sales and streaming service subscriptions and how UFC surpassed its goals in every metric he could list at a news conference that stretched well into the dawn’s early light.
The setting was almost impossible to top on a night where fighters essentially treated their walk-outs like they were kids on a class trip.
The all-male line-up toured the West Wing, the Oval Office, walked past presidential portraits, through the Roosevelt Room, the Cabinet Room — and the winners got a meet-and-greet with Trump.
Gaethje skimmed the copy of the Declaration of Independence that hangs in the Oval Office and said a prayer before he made the unusually long walk to the cage.
Gaethje battered Spanish-Georgian fighter Topuria in the main event and won the UFC lightweight title for the first time in his decade-long UFC career.
“Usually, I kind of blank out when it comes to getting ready to walk to the cage,” Gaethje said.
The seven-fight card ended with seven stoppages. (Getty Images: Chip Somodevilla)
“It was pretty crazy, looking at the Declaration of Independence. The original one. Their language was different. I’m not smart enough to read that.”
Gaethje also banked a whopping $US825,000 ($1.17 million) in bonus money for winning Performance of the Night and Fight of the Night honours.
Trump stayed until the end of the seven-card show and generally seemed engaged with the fights from his octagon-side seat, enjoying himself as winner after winner paid tribute to the birthday boy.
Trump boasted on Truth Social the night was “PERFECT!”
There were a few blips on the big night and the blemishes that did happen were at the expense of UFC’s two more problematic fighters.
Sean Strickland tried to sneak into a fan event but was immediately mobbed. (Getty Images: Johnny Bivera/Zuffa LLC)
UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland last week claimed he “wasn’t cleared by the White House” to fight at the event, claiming it was because he “made fun of Israel and Epstein”.
The 35-year-old recorded himself being mobbed by fans as he tried to sneak into the watch party held in the Ellipse, the park just south of the White House where the January 6 riot began.
Strickland was escorted out of the event by a group of police officers and placed in the back of a police van, later revealing he was charged with disorderly conduct.
“I don’t know what that is but it sounds cool,” he said in an Instagram story.
Heavyweight Josh Hokit took it further with an extraordinary and unfounded attack based on a right-wing conspiracy theory about former First Lady Michelle Obama, to cheers from the crowd featuring members of Trump’s cabinet, including Vice-President JD Vance, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth and FBI director Kash Patel.
His outburst came after knocking out 41-year-old Derrick Lewis in perhaps the most one-sided fight of the night — only added to the card to appease Trump, according to White — before Hokit placed a necklace around the president’s neck.
Josh Hokit (right) spewed an unfounded transphobic conspiracy theory in his post-fight interview. (Getty Images: White House/Handout/Anadolu)
For all the hand-wringing ahead of the card, the show delivered on the star-spangled smackdown that featured pulsating patriotism from the Marine Band, tributes to first-responders, active military and other White House-designated heroes.
Gaethje and Frenchman Ciryl Gane were crowned champions inside a blood-splattered cage plopped in the open air right in the people’s house backyard on the South Lawn, with the severe weather forecast delaying the start but never truly eventuating on site.
“Hopefully tonight created some unity,” White said as he put on his promoter’s hat.
“Even for the people that thought this was going to be some big political statement or something, this wasn’t. This was Americans, all Americans celebrating the birthday.
“For people who tuned in for the first time, because it was at the White House, hopefully they liked the sport. They liked some of the guys’ stories.”
International Fight Week is right around the corner, with UFC 329 on July 12 set to mark the return after a five-year break of the company’s biggest box office draw, Conor McGregor.
That fight will be held in a more traditional arena back on UFC’s home turf in Las Vegas, just as they will for years to come.
But despite all the pomp and pageantry, the eyerolls and angst, White stands by his claim that UFC is one-and-done in DC.
The constant headaches over weather concerns in the rare outdoors show, the logistics of construction of the cage and staging events at federal landmarks and the soaring cost — UFC said it was footing the $60 million tab — made Freedom 250 a one-off for a company once dubbed “human cockfighting”.
“I can’t afford it,” White said.
“I’ll never do the [Las Vegas] Sphere again and we’ll never do this again.”
AP/ABC
