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PORTSIDE CULTURE

AMERICA GOES FULL-TILT SATIRE AS TRUMP ANNOUNCES HE’S HOLDING UFC
FIGHTS AT THE WHITE HOUSE NOW  
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William Hughes
July 4, 2025
AV Club
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_ Nothing says "Happy Birthday, America!' like choking a guy out in
the Rose Garden. _

Donald Trump at a UFC fight in 2023, Photo: Carmen Mandato/Getty
Images

 

As a site focused on pop culture and the media, _The A.V. Club _is
not necessarily equipped to grapple, meaningfully, with many of the
clearly shitty things that happen in the American political landscape
on what feels like it’s now a second-by-second basis. (Have you
considered reading our sister site _Splinter_
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about this unending torrent of bile.) But while we can’t weigh in
intelligently on _most _of the very depressing ways this country is
choosing to celebrate its various milestones, we _can_ say this:
Holding UFC fights at the White House feels pretty fucking on the
nose, even for a narrative as lost in satire as our current, barely
shared reality.

This is per _CNN_
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reporting on comments made tonight by President Donald Trump,
suggesting that he intends to bring his old buddy, Ultimate Fighting
Championship president Dana White, in to hold a cage match at the
White House. (And while we normally do not spend a lot of time
thinking “thank you” toward White House press secretary Karoline
Leavitt, we do have to be grateful that she later confirmed to press
that Trump was “deadly serious” about scheduling the bout, because
the increasingly absurd nature of American life has really begun to
make some of this stuff kind of blurry.)

White and Trump have been friends for years, with the UFC CEO
representing one of the hydra-esque heads of the testosterone-huffing,
supplement-slinging male insecurity industry that Trump tapped to some
success in the 2024 election. (Among other things, White introduced
Trump at the Republican National Convention last year, and Trump has
lent the dignity of his office to several of the company’s fights in
recent months.) UFC has confirmed that it’s looking into setting up
a UFC bout at the White House some time in 2026, although no one has
yet specified where on the grounds it might end up being set up. (We
assume outside, but fuck it, why _not _directly in the Oval Office?
Get a little blood-mixed-with-body-spray splashed on the
ol’ _Resolute _desk.)

(By the way: If your job doesn’t involve looking up which of
the six extant Oval Office desks
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so you can make that joke, your job is not as weird as ours.)

Trump announced his modern gladiatorial game during a speech in Des
Moines on Thursday night, pitching it as part of his planned
“America 250” events celebrating the 250th anniversary of the
country’s founding next year. God knows what it ramps up to from
here; given how Trump’s treated his old friends at the WWE
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ourselves lucky if White hasn’t been named as Secretary Of Labor by
the time the year is out.

* UFC
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* Trump
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* America 250
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