Trump has a lot to brag about UFC White House, but…
Stormy weather wasn't the only bullet he dodged. Plus, some shady allegations surfaced.
Y’all know I’m a hater.
But I have to admit that the UFC and Dana White put on an all-timer of a spectacle at the White House.
There was even a great fight at the top of the card.
Dana White might not run the UFC, but he produces their TV really, really well
Mad props to Dana White, Craig Borsari, Zach Candito, and Dana’s production team, who outdid themselves and created many visually epic television moments.
The AI slop is a separate conversation for another day. Teddy Roosevelt be damned.
Dana White was also visibly animated and in fine form at the post-fight press conference, as he should have been following a career-peak performance at his real job — producing the UFC broadcasts.
At the post-fight presser, White got to brag about a phone call he received from Paramount’s nepo-baby CEO David Ellison, who was “elated” at the “off the charts” numbers the broadcast drew.
The Libs Were Trolled Hard, But Ari Emanuel Couldn’t Hide His Closeness to Trump
Dana White also served ably in his capacity as rodeo clown for his boss Ari Emanuel, walking out with Donald Trump in an attention-monopolizing TV moment.
Ari Emanuel, the King of liberal Hollywood who also remains an inside power player in Democratic politics and would love to see his brother Rahm do well in the 2028 US Presidential cycle, cannot afford to be publicly associated with this current POTUS. Despite reaping the rewards of UFC & WWE generating billions of dollars, the powers-that-be somehow managed to keep fighters from going over to Ari Emanuel for a handshake or fist bump. That role was left to Mark Shapiro.
Keen-eyed observers, like my colleague Zach Arnold, couldn’t miss the reality that the ONLY person whose hand Trump shook after the big walk-in with Dana to the Octagon and before sitting down cage side was TKO chair, Ari Emanuel.
Why does Ari Emanuel work so hard to stay out of the official “UFC and Dana White plus Donald Trump = BFFs”?
Well, Trump’s polling numbers and the polling numbers for the UFC White House event itself were abysmal. Yes, UFC White House was such a big deal that multiple big-time polling outfits spent time and energy on it.
And with Trump having lost most of the support from the young male UFC demo that Dana White and Ari Emanuel worked so hard to help him earn in 2024, one wonders what long-term damage to the UFC’s brand equity is being done by associating so closely with Trump.
But that’s a problem for another day, especially when there are so many tasty money-making opportunities for Ari and TKO while Trump is in office — whether it’s POTUS buying TKO stock, using Trump’s crypto to pay the fighter bonuses (convert that shit to cash ASAP, guys), or getting to show off boxing champ Tyson Fury on camera at the event as a political flex and a middle finger to Eddie Hearn — Fury was reportedly banned from entering the US in 2022 because of his “deep and well-documented connections” to Daniel Kinahan, “the suspected leader of one of Ireland's most powerful organized crime groups” who was recently arrested in the UAE.
And besides, the utterly debunked Dana White + Donald Trump myth is utterly dominating the media narrative no matter how much of it is BS. Zuffa Myth 2.0!
And speaking of shady… Ali Abdelaziz got his victory lap in the Octagon and kissed President Trump’s hand.
That’s not even mentioning whatever the fuck was going on with Daniel Cormier’s tweeted and deleted claim that Eric Trump supposedly asked him about “rigged fights.”
FWIW, Cormier claims he was hacked, and Trump denies they’ve ever spoken.
And yes, the libs were trolled and trolled hard by:
The massive wave of MSM media coverage before the event, focusing on Dana White as some manosphere pioneer and visionary;
The very idea of holding a cage fight on the White House lawn as an offense to DC company town sensibilities;
And a cheap, cringe-worthy crack about Michelle Obama from ick-meister Josh Hokit that got ridiculous coverage from credulous media like Tim Miller & Jemele Hill.
Anyone expecting effective opposition to the most corrupt and inept administration in US history to come from the MSM and their shitlib Democratic establishment-loving consumers should be desperately seeking alternatives.
The Fights Were Great, But The Outcomes Were Disastrous
The UFC’s matchmakers broke from their usual mindless meat grinder and copped the squash match style we saw at MVP’s Ronda Rousey vs. Gina Carano show.
Up until the last two fights of the night, the pattern was predictable. Blue corner bad, red corner good. Blue side jobbing, red side favorites. An ode to political team colors.
UFC matchmakers booked a set of fights that were clearly designed to give showcase wins to defending lightweight champ Ilia Topuria and aspiring triple weight class champ Alex Pereira, as well as favorites Sean O’Malley, Josh Hokit, Maurício Ruffy, and Bo Nickal.
Only the curtain jerker between Diego Lopes and Steve Garcia and the co-main event with Pereira vs. Gane featured relatively close odds going into the event.
Unfortunately for the best laid plans of the UFC, Topuria and Pereira took brutal losses that might have permanently damaged the drawing power and fighting capacity of both men.
Justin Gaethje improved from interim lightweight champ to undisputed lightweight champ with a dramatic and brutal win over Ilia Topuria. The dramatic and gritty win should propel Gaethje into the ranks of all-time great lightweights.
Unfortunately for the promotion, Gaethje turns 38 this fall and has had 33 hard-fought fights in his fifteen-year career. Is retirement on the table?
And in cementing his legacy, Gaethje did visibly massive physical damage and untold psychic harm to the previously undefeated 29-year-old Topuria, who is fresh off a hostile divorce.
Going into the bout, Topuria was one of the promotion’s two biggest global stars — welterweight champ Islam Makhachev being the other.
Maybe the loss was karma for Topuria, if the story Makhachev told Red Corner MMA is true:
“I can show you the chats with my manager… He called me, ‘The White House event, a fight against Topuria.’ And I said, ‘Let’s go,’ right away,” Makhachev told Red Corner MMA. “I didn’t even ask for it, but Ali said that the pay would be higher because it was the White House. And I said, ‘It’s even better.’ But the next day he called me and said, ‘It’s cancelled.’ I said, ‘Why, what went wrong?’ And he told me that [Topuria] asked for some insane money. And that was it… His manager himself said it in an interview, ‘The money we were offered for the fight was not enough, so we turned it down.’... Ilia may say whatever he wants, but it was his manager who negotiated.”
As a fight promotion, the UFC would have been indisputably better off booking Topuria vs Makachev regardless of the cost, but TKO is a value extraction machine, not a fight promotion.
A fight promotion books Ace vs. Ace fights for its biggest cards because that way no matter who wins and how, they still have at least one top draw emerging as a winner after the event.
As is, they’ve got Justin Gaethje, a fighter who is very close to his fighting expiration date. His mother supposedly wanted him to consider retirement after the UFC White House fight. How can Gaethje top winning the main event in the nation’s capital? What kind of purse will Ali Abdelaziz negotiate on his behalf to not retire?
UFC matchmakers Sean Shelby & Mick Maynard clearly didn’t expect Justin Gaethje to slaughter Paddy Pimblatt and Ilia Topuria. Pimblatt was supposed to be UFC’s next big thing, and now he’s back at the drawing board. Topuria may have had years shaved off his life.
As for Alex “Poatan” Pereira, UFC White House was a terrible event.
Before the interim Heavyweight title fight, Pereira’s allegedly unsavory personal life got some brutal coverage from one of Canada’s top publications as a result of the dramatically higher profile of this UFC event with the mainstream media.
And on fight night, Poatan flat got his ass-whipped by now interim champ Ciryl Gane, and his dreams of becoming the first-ever three-division UFC champ now seem like impossible hubris.
Don’t get me started about Cyril Gane, who “earned” the opportunity via eye-poking rightful champ Tom Aspinall into a No Contest at UFC 321 last fall.
Since Aspinall may never fight for the UFC again — whether it’s because his eye was so damaged by Gane that he might not fight again or because he’s now being managed by Dana White’s new worst enemy, boxing promoter Eddie Hearn, who insists “‘F*ck that! I won’t let him (fight again under his current UFC deal).”
The heavyweight division is in its worst shape since 2003. Josh Hokit has taken out both Curtis Blaydes and Derrick Lewis.
What are we left with? The ghost of Jon Jones? A re-match between Cyril Gane and Alexander Volkov? Sergei Pavlovich? Can UFC access PFL star Vadim Nemkov? A return of Francis Ngannou? The heavyweight politics are an absolute mess.
Andy Foster’s Doctor’s Terrible Terrible Call
For those who reflexively blamed DC for the abysmal fight doctoring in the main event, keep in mind that UFC exec Marc Ratner chose to bypass the DC combat sports commission and instead hired the Association of Boxing Commissions to oversee UFC White House.
ABC is a trade organization, not a regulator. Even by ABC standards, officials in the Eastern regional zone (zone #1) should have been working the event as regulators according to the ABC constitution.
Instead, it was Andy Foster and his California crew (zone #5). Athletic inspector Mark Relyea, referees Jason Herzog & Mike Beltran. ABC President Tim Shipman from Florida was also present. Both Foster and Shipman testified to Congress on behalf of the Muhammad Ali American Boxing Revival Act. They both got the nod to be at the UFC White House event.
We got to see ABC sanctioning play out in front of our very own eyes after round three of Topuria vs. Gaethje.
Topuria told his corner that he couldn’t see. The appointed doctor did a quick eye exam with his finger and told referee Marc Goddard no more. However, someone else stepped into the scene, and before we knew it, Goddard was allowing Topuria to fight round four. It would prove to be a big mistake. Topuria got bludgeoned and barely could make it to his stool at the end of R4. It was Topuria’s corner who had to stop the fight.
Who decided for Topuria to continue fighting and absorbing as much unnecessary punishment as he did? The responsibility falls at the feet of Andy Foster and Marc Ratner, whose org had control over the choice of the ringside physician.
If the Ali Revival Act gets passed in the US Senate, it will dramatically empower ABC authority. That means Andy Foster, Tim Shipman, and former President Mike Mazzulli will be the big winners. You will be seeing a lot more of them.
Between current ABC management and Tyson Fury’s appearance at the White House, TKO revealed who their favorites are right in front of your face.
But don’t expect the MSM or MMA pundits to spend much time on it.
So all in all, the UFC and Donald Trump both got to claim big victories Sunday — Trump was also once again celebrating a newly announced ceasefire in his disastrous war of choice with Iran — but time will tell at what cost.
Ari Emanuel is laughing all the way to the bank. From courtside at MSG to watch the New York Knicks in Game 3 of the NBA Finals to UFC White House, it was one hell of a sporting week for the King of Hollywood. Will the mainstream media’s refusal to name Ari Emanuel as a key Trump insider ever break down?
Nate Wilcox is the editor-in-chief of The MMA Draw. He founded Bloody Elbow in 2007 and sold it in 2024.