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Washington, DC – Fists will fly and blood will be shed at the White House on the 80th birthday of US President Donald Trump.
The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event on Sunday, which will also be next month’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, will bring 14 Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters to the “Octagon” cage constructed on the White House South Lawn.
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An invite-only crowd of 4,000 will attend the match, which will include two title fights, in an unprecedented display in the history of the sport that is about to end, however, as a political powerhouse for the president.
Trump, a former television personality, real estate mogul and hotel owner, has tried to tackle the sport, dating back to his embrace of professional wrestling in the late 1980s.
Al Jazeera spoke to sports and social media experts about the UFC show and Trump’s political projects, and how they will be received in the current political climate.
From a ‘baby face’ to a political ‘heel’
In the 1980s, Mr. Trump was solidifying his position as a world-renowned real estate developer, casino magnate, and tabloid tycoon. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and its original wrestling entertainment were on a “cultural shift”, according to Lowery Woodall, a professor at Millersville University in Pennsylvania who studies wrestling.
It was a fast-paced business, since Trump promoted the famous WWE event, Wrestlemania, at the nearby Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1988 and 1989.
But Trump’s relationship with the sport and the kindred spirit he seemed to find with WWE co-founder Vince McMahon went beyond business, building his own legend.
Trump has come across as arrogant on WWE news. He and McMahon eventually participated in a battle called the “Battle of Billionaires” in 2007, supporting opposing fighters while raising their prices to make it more entertaining.
“We’re seeing a history of fighting and promoting things that aren’t completely accurate to the fans, for example, taking someone who may have been born and raised in Minnesota and saying he’s Russian because we want a Russian opponent,” Woodall explained.
“I would say that the comfortable relationship that wrestling professionals have with the truth is probably one of the things that appeals to Mr. Trump,” he said.
“The truth, as told to the audience, is whatever is needed in the moment…
Some say that Trump’s political intervention has been, in part, supported by playing “heel”, or the opponent, in most American news, which dominates the headlines by always abusing friends and enemies.
But his WWE days saw him instead represent a “babyface”, the company’s name for “good guy”. His character tapped into the anti-corruption, “drain the swamp” populism that helped propel Trump to the White House in his unlikely 2016 victory.
“If anything, it’s seen as a check against the evil power of Mr McMahon who is doing nasty things every week on television to all your favorite stars,” Woodall said.
“Someone who has the same level of wealth and power as you comes into the situation and says, ‘no, no, this is all wrong, we can’t continue doing this. I have the power to take over your authority and defeat you,'” he said.
Politically useful
After moving to the White House, first in 2017 and again in 2025, the history of Trump’s TV career continued.
In his first term, he appointed Omarosa Manigault Newman, a contestant on the first season of his television show, “The Apprentice”, to his White House staff. He hired WWE co-founder Linda McMahon, wife of Vince McMahon, as Administrator of the Small Business Administration.
Linda McMahon is currently in Trump’s second term as education secretary, a cabinet that oversaw a number of Trump’s projects, including efforts to restrict transgender people from participating in college sports and helping to crack down on pro-Palestinian activists.
But while WWE’s views may have helped shape Trump’s public image, his embrace of the UFC, starting with events at his hotel in the early 2000s, may have helped him regain a political footing that would have never existed before a 2024 presidential victory: helping him tap into young, passive voters.
“Trump is very good at putting on shows and entertaining people, but it’s more than just shows,” Aaron Ettinger, a professor of international relations at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, told Al Jazeera. “There is a political agenda behind all of this.”
“The UFC is aggressive in a way that appeals to Trumpian masculinity,” he said. “It’s violent. There’s nothing soft about it.”
Both the UFC and WWE merged under the TKO Holdings company in 2023.
They boast the same in the sport, the fighters develop characters that are often based on ethnicity or politics, although the two sports are separated by a big difference: WWE is very scripted, while UFC fights are sports events where the winner is decided in the game, either by knockout, submission or points.
UFC fights average between 300,000 and 2 million viewers, according to sports betting site BetMGM, with audiences targeting mostly young, male viewers.
The culture of the UFC is also closely intertwined with the popular world of podcasting. Joe Rogan, one of the sport’s biggest sponsors, averages 11 million listeners per podcast.
“A lot of the audience for this is young men, and young men in America are some of the most active in politics,” Ettinger said.
Rogan, who endorsed Trump ahead of the 2024 vote, is expected to comment on Sunday’s events.
However, he criticized the UFC’s training abroad which could affect the outcome of the fight. He also questioned holding the event amid the ongoing US-Israel conflict with Iran.
Very home audience
The night of the White House war comes just days before the start of the FIFA World Cup 2026, the most watched sport in the world, across the US, Canada and Mexico.
The UFC event, whose viewers are mainly in the US, and other markets, including Brazil, China, Russia and the UK, are taking a different approach.
Kyle Kusz, a professor at the University of Rhode Island, said the event appeared to be an attempt by Trump to create a “military war game”, which he described as Trump’s “game vision of a better world”.
This is similar to the Trump administration’s vows, which were promoted by Pentagon Chief Pete Hegseth, to restore a “military mentality” to the US military and a less aggressive approach to US military operations abroad.
The Trump administration seems to be hoping that vision will return to the rest of the world.
On Thursday, UFC President Dana White and US Secretary of State Marco Rubio signed an agreement to promote the brand, which they described as American, as part of the “sports dialogue”.
“We are excited about what this brand means in terms of America’s ability to expand and reach out to different parts of the world,” he said, comparing the UFC’s “bold” strategy to the US moon landing.
He also called the UFC the “United Nations of Fighting”, referring to the various fighting nations.
The UFC may appeal to the Trump administration on other grounds, Kusz said. He also drew parallels between Trump to strengthen the process to the power of the president and the controlled environment of the UFC, including White’s influence.
The UFC has faced numerous lawsuits, with fighters claiming the brand has an MMA monopoly that stifles opportunities. At the same time, competitors are employed as contractors, reducing their ability to negotiate.
The brand has retained an “anti-establishment patina,” Kusz explained, “yet at the same time the overall look of the UFC is the same as it was in the 1890s…
Another complaint from Trump, who has been there return at the recent sports event, including the NBA finals at Madison Square Garden in New York: a display with controlled optics.
In addition to the list of guests who are being followed by the demands of government officials, the US media has also said that members of the US military must meet the waist-to-height guidelines. The Pentagon memo describes the “high visibility” of the incident.
“The UFC event will be tightly controlled and planned,” Kusz said. “I think for White and Trump, the idea is that they’re going to get what they want.”
Let them eat their fists?
Trump is a leading guest to promote events that mix patriotic messages with his big events. Last year, he participated in a military parade in Washington, DC, to celebrate the 250th anniversary of the US Army and his 79th birthday.
But Sunday’s show comes at a critical time. Trump has seen his public approval ratings fall amid the US-Israeli war with Iran, which his administration launched on February 28. US residents have struggled with economic problems, including skyrocketing oil prices.
Trump also said that a deal that could end the war with Iran is in its final stages, although a similar message has not been seen in the past.
A Reuters-Ipsos poll released on Thursday found that only 16 percent of Americans felt the event was appropriate, and 46 percent said it was inappropriate.
At least one a case it did not succeed in stopping the event, arguing that it did not go through the proper process of authorizing the government. In response, the administration of Trump said that more than $ 60mn was poured into the lawsuit, seven organizations are involved. The White House has maintained that the UFC is the biggest money maker.
The climate, Woodall of Millersville University, “makes it “hard to imagine that this could be the most affluent, most privileged people in our society watching a bloody game when their country is in a financial crisis, when people have to make very difficult decisions about how to pay for things like groceries and medicine”.
“I would say,” he added, “the aspect of team fighting surpasses the aspect of pugilism that takes place inside the octagon.”
