Here, blood and power meet in ultimate symbiosis
IN day fills Donald Trump 80 years old and he’s celebrating with one of his favorite pastimes. A 28-meter-tall temporary arena has appeared on the South Lawn of the White House. There shall Alex Pereira, Ilia Topuria and other of the world’s biggest names in mixed martial arts, MMA, square off in the octagon – an octagonal cage surrounded by metal fencing – with kicks, punches, chokes and joint locks.
The world’s largest MMA organization UFCthe Ultimate Fighting Championship, has been commissioned to host a gala to commemorate the President’s birthday and the 250th anniversary of the United States. In just a few decades, the UFC has gone from being a disreputable subculture in the shabbiest corners of American cable television to becoming part of America’s political elite.
Everything started as an experiment to find out which martial art works best in a fight, without weight classes and with as few rules as possible. In the first ever UFC fight, in Denver in 1993, a Dutch kickboxer kicked a 200-pound sumo wrestler so that one of his front teeth flew into the crowd. The New York Times described the UFC as a glimpse into “the decline of Western civilization” and MMA was banned in most states. But the UFC gained a clear group of early fans: young and often single men from the working class, far from the liberal big cities of the coasts.
The sport changed. The UFC introduced weight classes and more rules. MMA developed over the years into a technically advanced hybrid of different combat sports, and something completely different from the violence in Denver. Fighters experimented with the most effective way to dominate in the octagon, combining elements from boxing, wrestling, muay thai, Brazilian jiu-jitsu and judo, among others.
But at the turn of the millennium was still difficult to find arenas that wanted to host the UFC galas. Boxing enthusiast Donald Trump saw potential in the UFC, and let the company’s new CEO Dana White host their first two galas at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City in 2001.
Dana White managed to turn the UFC into a billion-dollar industry and a broad popular success with hundreds of millions of fans, including by creating a successful MMA reality series, “The Ultimate Fighter”, and by turning the galas into well-produced Las Vegas shows.
When Donald Trump entered politics, he was immediately backed by Dana White. He has given speeches praising Trump at the Republican convention before the last three elections. In the summer of 2024, he was the one who welcomed Trump onto the stage during the last night of the convention, a task normally performed by the presidential candidate’s wife.
White claims he is apolitical and that it is all about his friendship with Trump.
But it’s clear that the UFC, once trying to reach as wide a group of fans as possible, has decided to become a Maga-coded brand. Several of the UFC’s fighters have campaigned for Trump over the years, including through a successful 2024 effort targeting Arab-American young men in Michigan, one of the election’s swing states.
Because Trump is UFC a valuable phenomenon to be associated with. The company has managed to maintain a rebellious aura since its early years, combined with a populism that suited Trump’s rhetoric of speaking for the “silent majority”.
In addition, before the last election, Dana White connected Trump with popular podcasters and YouTubers that he had in his network, such as Carnation Boys, Theo Von, Adin Rossand not least the UFC’s expert commentator Joe Roganwhose interview with Trump got 40 million views on Youtube in three days. Trump could become part of a lad culture where kicks in the form of gaming, cryptocurrency, UFC, fitness and a luxurious lifestyle flow together with attacks on wokeness and feminism.
But above all, the UFC has helped to rehabilitate Trump’s image when he was most threatened. After the storming of Congress on January 6, 2021, Trump was temporarily seen as a calculated figure. A UFC gala in Las Vegas was one of his first public appearances afterwards. He was met with cheers from the crowd and cheers from the commentators as he was escorted into the arena accompanied by Dana White.
He received the same warm welcome at a UFC gala in New Jersey shortly after he was convicted of felony accounting violations in the spring of 2024. And while JD Vance sat in a failed peace negotiation with Iran in Islamabad in April this year, just days after Trump threatened that “an entire civilization will die”, he was at the front of a UFC gala in Miami. The UFC is Trump’s safe room, where he is always welcome.
A year ago, I was watching an MMA gala in Newark, New Jersey, when a flash notification vibrated on my phone. The Washington Post announced that Donald Trump had just sent the National Guard to Los Angeles, to quell protests against the immigration police ICE’s raids in the city, against the wishes of the governor of California. Ten minutes later, Kid Rock’s rap metal song “American Bad Ass” echoed through the arena and everyone in the audience knew what to expect.
And all this for the fans, girls, money and fame
I played their game
And as they scream my name
I will show no shame
It’s the president’s own walkout song, which is always played when he makes his entrance at UFC galas. The big screens showed Trump moving through the corridors of the arena, along with Dana White. He greeted Joe Rogan, and settled down at the front with his favorite daughter Ivanka and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Marco Rubio. The crowd chanted “USA-USA-USA”. After winning the women’s bantamweight title match, stepped Kayla Harrison down and hung his golden championship belt over Trump.
UFC galas have also become arenas for elite networking. People who Elon Musk (with his son X Æ A-12) and Mark Zuckerberg (with Meta sunglasses indoors) may appear in the audience.
From my seat high up in the arena in New Jersey, I could see how Trump was courted by a steady stream of people who wanted to say hello, have a brief audience and take a selfie. They had bought the seats next to the octagon, for 40,000 kroner each, to sit close to the power. While the matches were going on, Trump had long conversations with David EllisonCEO of media giant Skydance. At the time, Ellison was waiting for US authorities to approve the purchase of entertainment conglomerate Paramount, which had been sued by Trump because he was unhappy with its CBS News election coverage. A few weeks after the gala, news broke that Paramount had agreed to pay $16 million to the president. Ellison’s purchase of Paramount went through, and he also acquired the broadcast rights to the UFC for $7.7 billion.
Lobbyists and executives Republicans have been fighting to be seated and seen with the president at tonight’s gala at the White House. For the UFC and its parent company TKO, it’s a marketing opportunity where they reach out with the sport to a new, huge audience. It’s also a reward for helping Trump back to power.
As the war rages on in Iran, gas prices rise and Trump’s approval ratings continue to slide — even among the young men who carried him to victory — the aging president can appear strong and beloved next to the UFC’s fighters. And for the UFC, the symbiosis with power is completed when the gate to the Octagon closes for the first fight of the evening, with the White House as the backdrop.
Jonas Cullberg is a freelance journalist in New York. His book “Fight! Fight! Fight!: A report on power and MMA” will be published in August.
