On June 14, President Donald Trump will celebrate both his 80th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the United States’ founding with the country’s greatest spectacle: several hours of undoubtedly bloody cage fights on the White House’s South Lawn.
The event is the culmination of a long relationship between Trump and the UFC’s president, American businessman Dana White. White, who recently told Rolling Stone that he was “right down the middle” politically, has been a staunch ally of the president for Trump’s entire political career. Trump, in turn, has been both Dana White and the sport of MMA’s biggest fan for decades.
“Everyone has their thing, and Donald Trump’s thing is the UFC,” White told Rolling Stone.
In recent years, the UFC’s rising popularity has helped White establish something of a chokehold on American culture, as his sport is integral to the increasingly right-leaning “manosphere.” MMA now sits at the nexus of American politics and culture. A fight at the heart of the capital, then, was almost inevitable — all Donald Trump had to do is ask.
Rolling Stone will be at the fights in June, but until then, here’s everything we know.
