The defining moment of Donald Trump’s political career came at a campaign rally in 2024 when he was nearly killed by an assassin’s bullet. Uncowed, he raised his fist in defiance and urged the crowd to “Fight, Fight, Fight.”
This was a moment of a high drama, where Trump’s combative style was on full display. The image of Trump the Fighter – both authentic and carefully curated – has become the distilled essence of the Make America Again Movement (Maga).
What better way to celebrate his 80th birthday and America’s 250th anniversary then, than with a roaring cage fight? The entire arc of Trump’s business and political life has led directly to the UFC Freedom 250 spectacular on the White House lawn this Sunday.
The roster of fighters set to appear in the famed “Octagon” is somewhat lacklustre, according to mixed martial arts (MMA) fans. Most Americans will never have heard of the combatants. But that’s as it should be, because there will only be one undisputed heavyweight champ in the arena: the President himself.
The White House will be dwarfed by the illuminated 92-foot UFC “Claw”. Under its steel arches, which Trump has compared to the Eiffel tower, will be a hand-picked crowd of 4,300 people, including US servicemen, but Trump has boasted that “over 100,000” people will gather to watch on giant screens at the nearby Washington Ellipse.
Organisers have prudently warned the turnout may be less – especially as the weather promises to be hot, humid and rainy – but the President will be in his element, spurring on the violent “human cockfighting” (as the late senator John McCain called MMA) in his honour.
The ageing Trump, pancaked with make-up on his face and hands, has chosen to appear surrounded by fighters who look like the internet memes of himself as Captain America or Rambo, all ripped, muscled and glistening. Far from hiding his 80th birthday, as Joe Biden once did, he will use the occasion to project the illusion of unparalleled, hypermasculine martial vigour.
Thus, the 250th birthday of America will become the mere backdrop to a celebration of the power of Maga, the political movement created in Trump’s image. Here he will be in his element facing a “home” crowd in an arena that merges brash sports entertainment with magnetic political theatre. Paramount, the Trump-friendly media giant, has acquired exclusive streaming rights to all UFC fights.
Like the dark bruises on his hands, the cracks in Trumpism can only be covered up, they can’t be made to disappear. A YouGov poll last week revealed that 51 per cent of Americans disapprove of the White House hosting UFC Freedom 250 compared to 17 per cent who approve of the show.
Trump won’t care if the cage fights repel half of US voters, as long as it appeals to his core supporters as a pure, undiluted display of Americana at its most pugnacious and triumphant.
He has been entwined with the UFC since the early 2000s, when he agreed to host fights at his gaudy Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City. He was mesmerised by the spectacle at a time when most venues considered the sport to be too vulgar and violent and most cable TV stations wouldn’t show fights.
Dana White, the CEO of UFC and friend of Trump for 25 years, told USA Today: “When UFC started, people were like, ‘“’Oh my God, this is disgusting and horrible. Oh my God, this is brutal.’”
Though he didn’t know it at the time, Trump had identified the building blocks of the Maga movement. The fans of UFC turned out to be very similar to those formerly disengaged non-voters, who showed up in large numbers to support him in the 2016 presidential election — patriotic, gun-toting Americans without college degrees who felt ignored and left behind by the elites who purported to represent them.
When Trump lost the 2020 election and faced impeachment and prosecution, he retreated to his UFC comfort zone, where he could count on being cheered to the rafters. Symbolically, the arena was also part of his comeback narrative as the man who never stops fighting for America, for you – and for himself.
He appeared cageside at a UFC fight in 2023 four days after pleading not guilty in a New York court to 34 counts of falsifying business records in the “hush money” case involving the adult film star Stormy Daniels, and again a year later after the jury found him guilty (he received an “unconditional discharge” after being elected president).
It was White who persuaded Trump to appear on The Joe Rogan Experience, America’s most popular podcast, during the 2024 election, which brought young, male voters to the Maga cause. Rogan had previously been an UFC commentator and helped a reinvigorated Trump to broaden his appeal beyond the cable news media.
Since then, Trump has seen this support hemorrhage. The latest Ipsos/Reuters poll places his ratings in starkly negative territory, with only 35 per cent of voters approving of his performance; while 63 per cent disapprove – though other polls showing him trending slightly upwards to the higher 30s.
The return of inflation, now at 4.2 per cent – and the enduring Iran war – haven’t helped. Trump has suggested, not for the first time, that a peace deal with Tehran may come as early as “this weekend”.
In April, he was at a UFC fight in Miami flanked by secretary of state Marco Rubio, just as peace talks – led by Vice-President JD Vance – were collapsing in Pakistan. Could Trump pull off a birthday surprise?
Even if Trump’s promises come to nothing, this weekend’s spectacle reinforces the idea that he will never stop fighting – and can never be counted out.
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