I
t is April 11, 2026. President Donald Trump is in Miami, sitting cageside at his favorite live show on Earth: the Ultimate Fighting Championship, the pinnacle of the bloody sport of mixed martial arts. At his side is perhaps his best friend in the entire world, UFC President Dana White. The fights that night are electric: knockouts, cuts, blood all over the mats. At that very moment, Vice President J.D. Vance is in the final stages of failing peace talks with an Iranian delegation in Pakistan, but for a few short hours, the president has a front-row seat to a much more entertaining war. There is only one thing missing: Trump’s favorite fighter.
White will get a chance to rectify that at this month’s extravagant Freedom 250 celebration, featuring the first-ever UFC event on the White House’s South Lawn. “He looks at me and says, ‘Why is Derrick Lewis not on the White House [fight] card?’” White remembers of that April fight. “He doesn’t like Derrick Lewis. He loves Derrick Lewis.”
Lewis, for those unfamiliar, is a veteran heavyweight nicknamed “the Black Beast,” infamous for ripping off his shorts at the end of fights. After one recent win, Lewis dropped trou, got on all fours, and hiked a leg in front of his defeated opponent’s corner, pretending to piss on it like a dog. He is, in other words, an American hero, and all it took was that one question to make White spring into action. By the end of the night, Lewis was slated to fight at the White House.
