UFC stages first White House event as Gaethje wins title

The Ultimate Fighting Championship turned the White House South Lawn into a fight venue Sunday night, staging what The Guardian described as the first major professional sporting event ever held at the White House as President Donald Trump marked his 80th birthday.

The event, billed as “Freedom 250,” featured bright lights, fireworks, a military flyover, thousands of spectators and seven mixed martial arts bouts inside an octagon set up on the lawn. Fighters walked through the White House and along a military honor-guard corridor before entering the cage. Trump and UFC CEO Dana White walked together before taking front-row seats.

The card ended with Justin Gaethje defeating Ilia Topuria to win the undisputed lightweight title in what The Guardian called one of the bigger upsets in the sport’s history. After the fight, Trump entered the cage to congratulate Gaethje and greet his mother as fireworks went off to John Philip Sousa’s “Stars and Stripes Forever.”

Asked what the win meant, Gaethje said: “I’m from America. Two hundred and fifty years ago, we were way bigger than six-to-one underdogs, and look at this country now.”

All seven bouts ended by knockout or technical knockout, which Talking Points Memo reported was the first time in UFC history that every fight on a card ended that way. Cyril Gane defeated heavyweight Alex Pereira by second-round TKO. Sean O’Malley defeated Aiemann Zahabi, and Josh Hokit beat Derrick Lewis before using his post-fight interview with UFC broadcaster Joe Rogan to make a false claim about former first lady Michelle Obama. “Michelle Obama is a man. Am I right, America?” Hokit said. Rogan responded, “Ladies and gentlemen, Josh Hokit.”

The event drew scrutiny over the use of White House grounds for a privately run sporting event. Outside the perimeter at the Ellipse, a small group of protesters built a cardboard cage with oversized puppets of Trump and his Cabinet, while large crowds of fans entered a viewing area. A legal bid to block the event failed Friday, The Guardian reported.

Some fans said they viewed the night as a historic sporting spectacle rather than a political event. Luis, 18, who traveled from Colorado, told The Guardian it was exciting because it was “the first time anything like this has been done at the White House.” Emily Moore, 23, who came from New York to see Gaethje fight, said: “We applied for the tickets and got them, and we love UFC.”

The broadcast aired on Paramount+, the streaming service owned by Paramount Skydance. The Guardian reported that Paramount Skydance CEO David Ellison attended, along with Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Crypto.com CEO Kris Marszalek. Talking Points Memo reported the event was funded by the UFC and that viewers needed a Paramount+ subscription to watch.

Sponsor logos displayed on or around the cage included Polymarket, Stake, Bud Light, a Riyadh tourism campaign, Meta AI, Anduril and cryptocurrency-related companies, according to the reports. The Guardian reported that some fighters were due bonuses in USD1, a stablecoin from World Liberty Financial, a Trump family venture and official sponsor of the card. A White House spokesman told The Guardian there was no conflict of interest because the relevant assets are held in a trust run by the president’s children.

A separate controversy emerged before the opening fight between Diego Lopes and Steve Garcia, after commentator Daniel Cormier posted, then deleted, screenshots of messages purportedly from Eric Trump asking whether results were “rigged” and seeking injury information about fighters. Both men denied the exchange. “This did not happen. They were AI generated,” Eric Trump wrote. Cormier added: “Are people really this dumb?”