WASHINGTON — By the time Justin Gaethje pummeled his bloodied foe to a pulp and celebrated a championship win with a backflip off the top of the wire-mesh cage, then shook hands with President Donald Trump — and even fist-bumped Melania — this much about his company’s future was clear to the ultimate boss of UFC: Just say no to the White House.
“It was an amazing, experience, this was a one-of-one,” UFC CEO Dana White said.
“It will never happen again.”
Oh, not because the show dubbed Freedom 250 and ostensibly held to celebrate Trump’s 80th birthday and the 250th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence’s signing wasn’t by White’s accounts a smashing success. He crowed about merchandise sales and streaming service subscriptions and how UFC surpassed its goals in every metric he could list at a news conference that stretched well into the dawn’s early light Monday.
And the setting?
Forget it, almost impossible to top on a night when fighters essentially treated their walkouts like they were kids on a class trip. The all-male lineup toured the West Wing, the Oval Office, walked past presidential portraits, through the Roosevelt Room, the Cabinet Room — and the winners even got a meet-and-greet with Trump.
Gaethje skimmed the copy of the Declaration of Independence that hangs in the Oval Office and said a prayer before he made the unusually long walk to the cage. Gaethje battered Spanish-Georgian fighter Ilia Topuria in the main event and won the UFC lightweight title.
“Usually, I kind of blank out when it comes to getting ready to walk to the cage,” Gaethje said. “It was pretty crazy, looking at the Declaration of Independence. The original one. Their language was different. I’m not smart enough to read that.”
Gaethje also banked a whopping $825,000 in bonus money for winning “Performance of the Night” and “Fight of the Night” honors.
Trump stayed until the end of the seven-card show and generally seemed engaged with the fights — at one point he put on a white “USA” baseball cap — and certainly was all smiles each time a fighter who had a hand raised in victory then used it on a handshake with the president.
Trump boasted on Truth Social the night was “PERFECT!”
There were few blips on the big night and the blemishes that did happen were at the expense of UFC’s two more problematic fighters.
UFC middleweight champion Sean Strickland was escorted out of the Ellipse watch party attended by thousands more fans by a group of police officers. Heavyweight Josh Hokit took it further with an extraordinary and unfounded attack based on a right-wing conspiracy theory about former first lady Michelle Obama.
For all the hand-wringing ahead of the card, the show delivered on the star-spangled smackdown that featured pulsating patriotism from the Marine Band, tributes to first responders, active military and other White House-designated heroes. Gaethje and Ciryl Gane were crowned champions inside a blood-splattered eight-sided cage plopped in the open air right in the people’s house backyard on the South Lawn.
Blood and guts were a mandate before an American fighter wrapped himself in the flag.
“Hopefully tonight created some unity,” White said as he put on his hyperbolic promoter’s hat. “Even for the people that thought this was going to be some big political statement or something, this wasn’t. This was Americans, all Americans celebrating the birthday. For people who tuned in for the first time, because it was at the White House, hopefully they liked the sport. They liked some of the guys’ stories.”
So maybe some new fans stick around.
After all, International Fight Week is right around the corner, with UFC 329 set to mark the return after a five-year break of the company’s biggest box office draw, Conor McGregor.
That fight will be held in a more traditional arena back on UFC’s home turf in Las Vegas, just as they will for years to come.
But despite all the pomp and pageantry, the eyerolls and angst, White stands by his claim that UFC is one-and-done in D.C.
The constant headaches over weather concerns in the rare outdoors show, the logistics of construction of the cage and staging events at federal landmarks and the soaring cost — UFC said it was footing the $60 million tab — made Freedom 250 a one-off for a company once dubbed “human cockfighting.”
“I can’t afford it,” White said. “I’ll never do the Sphere again and we’ll never do this again.”
