White House to host July 4 cage fight: UFC boss
The White House will be the unlikely venue for a mixed martial arts bout on July 4 next year, according to UFC boss Dana White. File photo: AFP
The White House is to play host to a mixed martial arts bout on July 4 next year, the day the United States marks the 250th anniversary of its founding, UFC boss Dana White said on Tuesday.
US President Donald Trump has been a regular guest at the often-bloody contests, where fighters punch, kick and grapple with their opponent in a no-holds-barred battle to submission or knockout.
Bringing the brutal combat sport to the centre of US political power will mark a historic first.
"It is definitely going to happen," White, a high-profile supporter of the US president, told CBS television.
"I talked to him last night – 'him' being the president – and I'm flying out there at the end of this month, and I'm going to sit down and walk him through all the plans and the renderings, and we're going to start deciding what he wants and doesn't want."
Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) is the largest and most successful organisation in the burgeoning world of MMA, a blend of martial arts disciplines like jiu-jitsu, kickboxing, boxing and wrestling.
White said the president's daughter would be involved in organising the Independence Day spectacle at the White House.
"When (Trump) called me and asked me to do it, he said: 'I want Ivanka in the middle of this,'" White told CBS, whose parent company Paramount has just signed a US$7.7 billion streaming deal with UFC.
White took over the UFC in 2001 when it was a small, loss-making organisation, shepherding it into one of the fastest-growing sports promotion companies in the world.
The sport's popularity with young men – a key demographic in the 2024 US election – and Trump's long association with the UFC, have made the president a regular fixture at some of its more high-profile events, where he is greeted like a rock star. (AFP)
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