This week’s edition of The MMA Draw podcast sets the record straight about what UFC could — and should — have given the fans for their June 14th White House card.
There’s lots of internet rumors floating about Jon Jones, Conor McGregor, and Islam Makhachev. Putting those rumors aside, the dark truth about the UFC White House event is that it has sucked all the oxygen out of the room for UFC’s 2026 season.
TKO spent months… and months… hyping up a fight card that was supposed to sell millions of prospective subscriptions for Paramount.
What happened?
TKO management thought that dropping the ESPN paywall would usher in a new generation of UFC fans who would fall in love with their product.
The Paramount Era in Q1 has given UFC plenty of exposure… and the fans don’t like what they’re seeing.
2026 is proving to be the year that Mark Shapiro, despite building a substantial multi-billion dollar financial fortress, is starting to lose the public relations battle. Shapiro is obsessed with storytelling and controlling the narrative, especially when it comes to making the hard sell to Wall Street and Sovereign Wealth Funds.
The problem for Mark Shapiro is that money can’t buy the love of current UFC fans.
One constant factor UFC management could always rely on was fans taking the side of management over talent regarding fighter pay. Ironically, Eddie Hearn has turned the tables on TKO after they signed Conor Benn away from Matchroom Boxing for a reported $15M.
That nice, big, round figure — combined with the billion-dollar figures being advertised by Mark Shapiro and Paramount — has created genuine unrest. The key is that both fighters and fans are unhappy. Fans are starting to make the connection that the UFC product, by and large, stinks on ice because the U Fight Cheap model is eroding the quality of matchmaking by company management.
No Francis Ngannou or Tom Aspinall at UFC White House. Nakisa Bidarian outflanked UFC by booking a truly American First fight: Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano.
Even if Hunter Campbell booked a somewhat respectable UFC White House fight card, it isn’t worthy of the marketing hype or firepower that TKO possesses. Fans are not buying their corporate excuses anymore.
The combination of fans connecting cheap fighter pay, along with TKO’s marriage to President Trump’s White House and David Ellison’s Paramount, is proving to be a difficult branding exercise for Mark Shapiro. Especially for fans paying thousands of dollars to attend a numbered UFC event in 2026.
People who normally wouldn’t pay attention to the current state of affairs at UFC are starting to wake up because of Paramount and White House politics. TKO miscalculated in believing that the political noise was white noise that could be easily dismissed. It is not.
At the heart of TKO & Trump White House policy is the Middle East. The United Arab Emirates is a key financial player for their business ventures. All those Middle Eastern site fees that Andrew Schleimer likes to hype up on TKO conference calls face great uncertainty because of the tens of billions of dollars in damage suffered by the Gulf States due to suicide drones in the American/Israeli war with Iran.
There is a major global oil shock right now. Nearly $100 a barrel. As The Financial Times recently reported, the Gulf States — like Saudi Arabia, UAE, and Qatar — are suddenly reconsidering their American investments. This is why Tencent is reportedly back in the ball game to help finance Paramount’s giant debt bomb.
Everything in this out-of-control world of finance and cage-fighting is now interconnected. This is why it pays to be a subscriber to The MMA Draw newsletter on Substack. We put all of this insanity into context that is easier to understand.
Spend your money with us, not the billionaires. You’ll thank us later.
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Nate Wilcox is Editor-in-Chief of The MMA Draw. He founded BloodyElbow.com in 2007 and sold it in 2024.
Zach Arnold is a lead opinion writer for The MMA Draw on Substack. His archives can be read at FightOpinion.com.
