Your bag is empty.
On Sunday night, after much anticipation, it was Fight Night in America, and for the first time, hosted at the White House. The UFC Freedom 250 had finally arrived. Staple announcer Bruce Buffer roared “IT’S TIME” as F-35 stealth bombers soared overhead, and ring girls dressed in skimpy patriotic red, white, and blue strode around the stage, the whole spectacle taking place underneath a newly-constructed 92-foot tall steel canopy nicknamed “The Claw.” Watching from the Fan Zone at the Ellipse, I thought it the apotheosis of Trump’s America, the greatest evidence yet of his merging public civic ritual with private mass entertainment.
Although the event was initially slated for July 4th, in honor of America’s 250th birthday, logistical difficulties scuttled those plans, and the organizers moved them to Flag Day, June 14th — also President Trump’s 80th birthday. While it was officially still a celebration of the country, what it was in actuality was something far stranger: sanctioned, for-profit patriotism, doubling as the birthday party for a leader who reportedly desires to be considered a modern Julius Caesar.
The UFC branded it as “the most historic sporting event of all time,” even extending the scope beyond combat sports. The day before, in the lead-up to the fights, Travis Pastrana and the rest of the Nitro Circus stunt team performed dirtbike jumps and daredevil antics. Competing fighters warmed up inside the Eisenhower Executive Office Building, then walked through the Oval Office and descended the South Portico’s steps toward the Octagon, following the two Presidents’ — Donald Trump and Dana White, USA and UFC — own strut onto the grass. Joe Rogan, commenting cageside, said that energy was surreal — but added that outside, in the 85,000 person Fan Zone where I was camped, the energy was even crazier, and that, surely the beverages were flowing. By my observation, he was correct.
The Fan Zone was for the many like me, who were unable to score what was deemed months ago the hottest ticket in Washington. The crowd, not surprisingly, was exuberant. Some were UFC faithful who could name every fighter on the cards, varied in their politics, attending to experience the biggest moment in their fandom’s history. Others were Trump diehards, wearing his hats and merchandise, wanting to be close to their hero on his big day. Still more were neither, simply here for the show, to witness something absurd and unprecedented. “Come on bro, given the chance, who wouldn’t want to see this?” One man traveling from North Carolina told me.
Inside the fence, it was a different group entirely, a “who’s who” of right-wing and right-wing adjacent celebrities, moguls, and politicians in attendance, alongside a thousand-plus armed servicemembers. Vice President JD Vance, Secretary of State Marco Rubio, Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth. FBI Director Kash Patel. House Speaker Mike Johnson. Senate Majority Leader John Thune. Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who was loudly booed. The actor Mark Wahlberg. The musician Kid Rock. The list goes on — but despite Dana White’s insistence that the event was non-political, there were few ideological opponents in that audience.
Perhaps it was because the event’s legal status was, at best, contested. A federal lawsuit argued it violated National Park Service regulations, lacked congressional authorization for the South Lawn’s structural modifications, and as the first private, for-profit sporting event ever staged at The White House — with Trump himself holding shares in TKO Holdings, the UFC parent company — “a volcano of corruption.” Regardless, the presiding judge denied the injunction, because the plaintiffs couldn’t demonstrate personal harm, and the money already spent. The show would go on.
All seven fights ended by knockout or TKO, often in brutal fashion. In the co-main event, the interim UFC Heavyweight Championship bout, interim Heavyweight Champion Ciryl Gane mercilessly pummeled former two division king Alex Pereria into the fence, the referee stopping the contest about ten seconds past gratuitous. On the main card, six-to-one underdog Justin Gaethje upset previously undefeated Ilia Topuria in a four-round war to become the oldest Lightweight Champion in UFC history, backflipping off the cage in jubilation and nearly breaking his neck in his moment of triumph.
After dropping Aieman Zahabi, the pink-haired fan favorite “The Suga Show” Sean O’Malley saluted the troops and grinned that “you can’t even dream of stuff like [this].” Wrestling-style heel Josh Hokit concurred, and upon defeating Derrick “The Black Beast” Lewis, thanked the president for making what once seemed absurd fantasy actual reality. “Shout out to Trump for having the balls to put some shit like this on,” he remarked, before declaring that Michelle Obama, the former First Lady, was actually a man.
The crowd went wild for it all, myself included, it being easy to get lost in the absurdity.
That past Friday evening, while waiting on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial for the UFC Freedom 250’s kickoff press conference, I watched the skies turn orange and lightning strike around the Washington Monument. With nu-metal blasting from the speakers as the fighters descended and struck poses for their adoring, screaming masses, the scene felt cinematic, like the world itself was facilitating this absurd modern update on forgotten gladiatorial ritual. Although the comparison was always obvious, I never expected it to look that way, too.
Bread and circuses, the Roman poet Juvenal wrote, is how you keep a restless population pacified. In the months leading up to the fights, critics made the observation countless times, deriding the spectacle not only as indulgent, but as distracting from the administration’s chaotic governance and alarming consolidations of power, government-celebrated bloodsport serving as yet another unflattering American analogue to Ancient Rome. And so it might’ve been. But one has to admit: it was one hell of a circus.