President Kennedy received a serenade from Marilyn Monroe for his most famous birthday celebration.
On Sunday, as President Trump turns 80, he will set a new bar for presidential parties with professional MMA fights on the White House’s South Lawn.
The seven-fight card is unprecedented for the White House and Ultimate Fighting Championship, the world’s most recognizable mixed martial arts circuit. The president’s residence has never hosted an athletic exhibition of this magnitude. The fighters have not had a venue this unique either.
Approximately 4,000 spectators will watch the fights in person. It is a relatively small turnout for fighters used to selling out some of the world’s biggest arenas.
Most of the athletes said they had not fought outside in years, and the crowd Sunday will be their smallest since the COVID-19 pandemic emergency limited attendance in 2020.
“Personally, it’s not a big difference for me,” heavyweight contender Ciryl Gane said.
The exhibition, titled Freedom 250 for the American Semiquincentennial, has drawn unparalleled media scrutiny.
“There’s definitely precedence for athletic events, but this is a combination of athletic event and a celebrity event,” said Tevi Troy, a presidential historian and senior fellow at the Reagan Institute.
Many UFC staples — including commentator Joe Rogan, former women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, and current middleweight champion Sean Strickland — have publicly criticized the joint venture between the MMA brand and the Trump administration.
“I don’t like the idea of fighting outside at all,” Mr. Rogan said on his popular podcast, “The Joe Rogan Experience.”
Rousey, on the other hand, criticized the lackluster lineup, while the outspoken Strickland continued to criticize Mr. Trump.
“I’m not even salty they didn’t clear me,” Strickland said in a video posted to social media. “Could you picture me sitting with [FBI Director] Kash Patel? … I’d ban me from the White House too.”
No criticism was enough to derail the vision of Mr. Trump, a longtime UFC fan.
Frowning Fathers
Sports at the White House are not unheard of.
President Theodore Roosevelt boxed in the basement.
President Obama added basketball hoops to the White House tennis court.
President George W. Bush invited local T-ball squads to play T-ball games on the South Lawn.
None of those matches the magnitude of the UFC card. These are professionals, and this is not an exhibition. The lightweight and interim heavyweight titles are on the line.
“Trump, I think, is more willing than other presidents to be asked that question: Why aren’t you doing it the way the previous presidents did?” Troy said. “Breaking the precedent doesn’t bother him.”
Many historically minded spectators, such as former White House Historical Association chief historian Edward Lengel, have expressed concerns about the event.
“I’m not one of those who’s going to be outraged about the sport itself being somehow lesser,” said Mr. Lengel, whose father was a boxer and whose grandfather was a pro wrestling referee. “However, this is unprecedented in terms of this type of event being presided over by the president at a dignified location.”
UFC CEO Dana White poured $60 million into the event. Turning the lawn of an 18th-century mansion into a 21st-century venue for combat sports is a vast undertaking.
The South Lawn needed risers and thousands of black folding chairs for spectators. Paramount+, the streaming service broadcasting the matches, needed wires and access for its crews and cavalcade of cameras.
Seven federal agencies have worked together to screen the hundreds of laborers who brought in more than a dozen trucks full of construction material.
Work on the venue began in April, and laborers feverishly continued their preparations as recently as Thursday. When hundreds of members descended on the site for a walk-through, the air buzzed with the whirr of drills and saws.
Still, the biggest piece of construction is already in place: The Claw. The makeshift, 90-foot roof features four legs, an array of lights, speakers and open siding — just enough coverage to keep the elements off the octagon, which sits in a cage between the White House and the Washington Monument.
Spectators farther from the fighters could still get wet in uncovered seats. Mr. White has said the fights will continue regardless of the weather conditions.
The newly built venue features 4,000 foldout chairs for the lucky few who scored an invite to the fights. The best seats will be mere feet from the athletes. Those with less ideal seats get views of the Washington Monument as a consolation prize, with four large screens to help ensure they do not miss a single punch, kick or chokehold.
Mr. Trump has openly expressed his pride in the site, noting that it could stick around despite its temporary status. Published plans from federal officials noted that the teardown process will begin at 10 a.m. Monday, less than 10 hours after the event concludes.
A lawsuit from the Public Integrity Project this week sought to accelerate that deconstruction. It calls the event corrupt and claims The Claw required congressional approval.
Trump administration officials have shrugged off the lawsuit. Justice Department senior media affairs manager Natalie Balassarre told ESPN that the plaintiffs “hate fun.”
“We were expecting a lawsuit,” Mr. White said. “We expected everything coming into this event. We thought it would be sooner. We knew it was going to come. We didn’t know who or how, but we knew it was going to come.”
The lawsuit has not succeeded in pausing construction, even as historians weigh the current events with the Founding Fathers’ intentions for the White House. President John Adams, the first commander in chief to take residence in the Executive Mansion, could not have predicted professional cage fights with clear advertisements for Bud Light, Crypto.com and Polymarket.
“I think this is inconsistent with what the Founders would have intended or wanted. They always wanted a certain level of gravitas and verity and formalness at the White House,” said Mr. Lengel, noting that he found the unprecedented event inappropriate but not scandalous.
The only comparison point he considered for a similarly rowdy White House event occurred when President Jackson escaped through a window during his raucous 1829 inaugural reception.
“Even he didn’t do anything like this,” Mr. Lengel said.
Ready to rumble
Customs change, even at the White House. Mr. Lengel noted that past presidents organized displays, concerts and demonstrations to suit their needs. Kennedy kicked off the trend despite having little understanding of classical music.
“He didn’t even really like it. But what he was trying to do was trying to create this image, bringing real, high-class culture to the White House,” Mr. Lengel said, adding that President Clinton brought bluegrass musicians to emphasize his Southern roots to the masses.
Mr. Trump is no exception.
“They’re trying to move away from highbrow, elitist entertainment. [The UFC event] is much more consistent with their populist view and how they’re trying to run the White House,” Mr. Lengel said. “It’s also consistent with what Secretary [Pete] Hegseth is doing with the Department of War: trying to incubate a warrior ethos and mentality.”
About 25% of the event invitees are expected to be active-duty military members. The move has only further worried skeptics such as Mr. Rogan.
“It sounds crazy. I know it’s going to be very high security — and high stress and weird — to have a fight at the White House in the middle of a war,” he said on his podcast.
Most of the participating fighters — eight Americans, three Brazilians, a Canadian, a Frenchman and the Georgian-Spanish featherweight champion Ilia Topuria — have openly underplayed the event.
Their media appearances have described the White House card as an honor, but most athletes are trying to maintain their usual routines despite an intensifying media circus.
“It’s just another fight,” said Gane.
“It hasn’t quite felt different. Just feels like another fight week,” said bantamweight Sean O’Malley. “You’re in such a different mindset and different world when you’re in the octagon. … But I think it’s going to be a beautiful day and it’s going to turn out perfect.”
A few thousand fans will watch Gane, O’Malley and a dozen other athletes fight with their own eyes. About 80,000 more are expected to gather a quarter of a mile to the south for massive viewing parties at the Ellipse.
The weekend will be littered with free-to-attend events, starting with press conferences Friday night at the Lincoln Memorial and continuing with ceremonial weigh-ins and a festival at the Ellipse.
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