Why is Trump hosting a cage fight at the White House?

Donald Trump will on Sunday watch a cage fight at the White House in a makeshift arena called The Claw, a spectacle he has characteristically predicted will be “the greatest show on earth”.

Mixed martial arts (MMA) was banned across most US states 30 years ago, but with those restrictions now long since lifted, its raw power will be on full display in a sign of the sport’s growing popularity and political influence.

The event will feature 14 elite fighters squaring off in back-to-back matches on the presidential grounds, showcasing a mix of striking and grappling.

The spectacle has been branded UFC Freedom 250 and is meant to commemorate the country’s 250th anniversary by celebrating “the American fighting spirit”.

But critics have questioned whether the event, which falls on Trump’s 80th birthday, is a suitable celebration of US independence. One opposition group even challenged it with a federal lawsuit, alleging it was a “profound misuse of our sacred national monuments”.

The sheer scale of the preparation matches the controversy. The 92ft-tall (28m) steel arena structure has completely altered the South Lawn skyline. It is designed to host about 4,000 spectators, while as many as 85,000 more are expected to watch on giant screens in the nearby Ellipse.

Yet the visual of fighters trading blows beneath the windows of the Oval Office isn't just a one-off show - it is the culmination of a quarter-century alliance. To understand how the brutal sport secured America's premier political address, you have to look back to when both the UFC and Donald Trump were in vastly different positions.

The driving force behind the event is the 25-year friendship between Trump and UFC President Dana White.

When White and his business partners bought the struggling organisation for $2 million (£1.5m) in 2001, the sport faced intense political backlash. Just five years earlier, Republican Senator John McCain had famously labeled MMA “human cockfighting”, sparking bans in 36 states.

“None of the venues wanted [the UFC],” White told CBS, the BBC’s US partner, in 2025. “They didn’t believe in it. They didn’t like it, and they were worried about the type of crowd that would show up for this type of event.”

With mainstream arenas shutting them out, White credits Trump with saving the organisation by hosting two UFC events at the Trump Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City in 2001.

With the introduction of strict regulations, rules, and safety gloves, the sport eventually shed its outlaw status. The company was sold for $4 billion (£3bn) in 2016 and was valued at $12bn (£9bn) in 2023 - making this weekend's South Lawn event a highly personal victory lap for both men.

The White House event is a calculated nod to a crucial voter demographic. An overwhelming majority of UFC fans are men under 30 - a group that heavily favoured Trump in the last election, though recent polling suggests his approval among them has slipped.

Katie Zacharia, a former spokesperson at the Department of Homeland Security and a conservative commentator, told the BBC that the event could appeal to young men and send a message of “positive masculinity” in response to what she termed the “softness introduced by the hard left”.

She also dismissed criticism directed at the event, saying the principles of the UFC “are the kind of principles that founded our Constitutional Republic”.

“It’s about not giving up the fight until the bitter end,” she said. “I think there’s no better summation of the American ethos than a good UFC fight.”

Two critics of the event - a Virginia-based Vietnam War veteran and a local civic activist - sought to block it in a last-minute lawsuit but a judge ruled that it could go ahead.

The lawsuit, filed by anti-corruption law firm Public Integrity Project, said the event was “deeply corrupt”, citing Trump’s financial interests in TKO, the UFC’s parent company, and his close ties with White.

“This is a case about corruption,” Brendan Ballou, the founder of the Public Integrity Project, said in a statement to the BBC, citing the sale of sponsorship packages, streaming rights, and ads at the White House and Lincoln Memorial.

“The basic question we need to ask as a country is whether we want to use our most sacred national monuments to enrich the president and his allies. We think the question answers itself.”

Trump is known to have financial ties with the UFC, with public records showing he purchased between $15,000 and $50,000 (£11,000 and £37,000) worth of stock in TKO in March this year.

But the White House has pushed back on any suggestion of wrongdoing, noting that Trump’s assets are in a trust managed by his children and that there are “no conflicts of interest”.

• The cost: The UFC says it is spending $60 million (£45m) to stage the event - including $700,000 (£520,000) to restore the South Lawn grass - and does not expect to turn a profit.

• The guestlist: Spectators in the arena are expected to be made up of administration officials, service personnel and special guests. Members of the public who applied for free tickets will be in the Ellipse fanzone.

• Security: Local authorities are expected to spend $10-12 million (£7.5-9m) in federal funds on security and road closures.

• The fight card: The 14 fighters will be the first athletes to ever compete professionally on White House grounds. The all-male fight card is headlined by Ilia Topuria defending his lightweight title against Justin Gaethje.

It is not unusual for presidents to hold large events on the South Lawn, from country fairs to jazz festivals as well as the annual Independence Day celebrations and Easter Egg rolls - but the scale and content of Sunday night’s event is quite different.

“I think we can use the word ‘unprecedented’ here,” Edward Lengel, the former chief historian of the White House Historical Association told the BBC.

“There have been many different episodes of entertainment at the White House, but those have usually been musical or performative in character. There’s really been nothing like this before.”