A bit greater than per week earlier than the Presidential election, Donald Trump hosted a rally at Madison Sq. Backyard that some speculated could be the loss of life knell of his marketing campaign. Eleven days after his victory, he returned to the Backyard for an Final Combating Championship occasion, strolling onto the world ground to Child Rock’s “American Dangerous Ass.” Trump was flanked by his longtime pal Dana White, the C.E.O. of the U.F.C., who, maybe greater than anybody else, helped Trump mobilize younger males to the polls. Behind the 2 males had been key members of the following Trump period: Elon Musk; Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.; the Speaker of the Home, Mike Johnson; Tulsi Gabbard; and Vivek Ramaswamy.
“It’s all the time loud when he comes right here, however now that he’s received? Now that he’s the President once more? Oh, my God,” Joe Rogan, a longtime U.F.C. commentator, introduced from the ground. Trump closed in on the octagon and pulled Rogan into a protracted embrace, as the gang roared. Then, for round twenty minutes, Trump and his allies continued to face simply outdoors the cage. Once in a while, somebody within the viewers would begin up a chant of “U.S.A.” There was a growth of applause when Trump danced to “Y.M.C.A.”
The headline combat was between two heavyweight champions, Jon Jones and Stipe Miocic, however a lot of the viewers had come to see the President-elect, who had prompt, throughout an look on Rogan’s podcast in October, that he could be in attendance. (“I’ll both go as President, or I’ll be depressed and I received’t hassle going,” he mentioned.) “We heard Donnie Trump was coming by way of and couldn’t miss that,” a twenty-four-year-old man named Robert, from suburban New Jersey, informed me. His pal Keith added, “It simply makes it seem to be he desires to be a part of what all of the common folks do.” A twenty-year-old fan named Tiny Boadu, who wore a MAGA hat and a Trump shirt, equally described Trump as a “particular person of the folks.” Boadu mentioned that Trump’s love of U.F.C. was a significant a part of his attraction. “Presidents don’t often come out to occasions like this,” he informed me.
The U.F.C., valued at greater than twelve billion {dollars}, is the world’s largest mixed-martial-arts group. “Because the U.F.C. has grown, there’s been lots of people which have jumped on the bandwagon and have become followers,” White informed me. “Trump was there from the start.” When the U.F.C. first launched, in 1993, it was marketed as a blood sport with no gloves, no cut-off dates, and virtually no guidelines. This led to nationwide controversy, with John McCain famously referring to the game as “human cockfighting.” In 2001, when Dana White and Lorenzo and Frank Fertitta stepped in and acquired the corporate, the U.F.C. had been almost regulated out of existence. White was tasked with cleansing up the game’s picture and dealing with regulators to ease restrictions. That yr, Trump helped save the fledgling sport by internet hosting a number of occasions on the Trump Taj Mahal, his on line casino in Atlantic Metropolis. The Taj Mahal was in ruinous debt and would later go bust, however the U.F.C.—and Trump’s friendship with White—thrived. When Trump launched his first Presidential marketing campaign, in 2015, White was one of many first public figures to endorse him. And through and after his first time period, Trump was capable of look to the U.F.C. as a type of protected house. In October, 2019, Trump was roundly booed at a World Sequence recreation in Washington, D.C. The subsequent week, he went to a U.F.C. occasion at M.S.G. “Each time when he was getting hammered at his worst, we’d stroll into that area and the place erupts and goes loopy,” White informed me. “It reveals different folks, Oh, wait. Everyone doesn’t hate Donald Trump just like the media is telling us.”
White credit the U.F.C.’s current spike in reputation to the COVID-19 pandemic. When different main sports activities leagues went on pause, the U.F.C., which largely makes use of its personal manufacturing workforce, continued to carry and promote occasions throughout lockdown. This made White one thing of a hero amongst conservatives, as he circumnavigated COVID-19 restrictions perceived as draconian by many on the proper. It additionally attracted bored younger males to the game. Jonathan Charbonneau, a sixteen-year-old on the M.S.G. occasion, informed me, “The game was there for me to observe in COVID and stuff like that, after I had nothing else to do. It gave me one thing to sit up for, one thing to do after I couldn’t even go away my home.”
On the Backyard, Trump and his entourage sat subsequent to White. Seated close by was Taylor Lewan, one of many hosts of Barstool Sports activities’s well-liked podcast “Bussin’ with the Boys.” Throughout Trump’s 2024 marketing campaign, White performed a pivotal position in brokering relationships between Trump and sure hosts among the many canon of “bro-casts”: Lewan and his co-host, Will Compton, Theo Von, Adin Ross, Andrew Schulz, the Nelk Boys, and, after all, Rogan. White defined that the objective was to mobilize members of the youthful era that usually don’t vote. Younger males, some of the unreliable demographics in politics, make up a big a part of U.F.C.’s viewers. “You’re getting conversations in these podcasts, and also you your self, as a younger child, get to actually see who Donald Trump is,” White defined. “Not the bullshit you hear from the far-left media.” Throughout Trump’s victory speech, he invited White onstage, and White particularly thanked Von, Ross, the Nelk Boys, and different podcasters for his or her assist.
The penultimate combat of the evening received underway: Michael Chandler, a muscle-bound Midwesterner, versus the Brazilian fighter Charles Oliveira. Chandler took a beating for the primary 4 rounds, then tried to steal a victory within the closing seconds of the combat. As Oliveira clung to him like a backpack, Chandler rose to his toes and slammed his opponent on his again and head. Their our bodies crashed into the canvas, and the gang roared. Then Chandler did it once more, rising to his toes and crashing as soon as extra into the ground, with Oliveira nonetheless on his again. Trump stared on, seemingly unmoved. “All I understand how to do is throw American badass warning to the wind. Madison Sq. Backyard, are you not entertained?” Chandler mentioned, moments after dropping the combat.
The night closed with a combat between two legends. In a single nook stood Jon Jones, thought of by some to be the best U.F.C. fighter of all time—an enormous, gangly man who had constructed a repute for his run-ins with the regulation and for ending his opponents with a violence notable even amongst cage fighters. Within the different was two-time U.F.C. heavyweight champion Stipe Miocic, identified for his indefatigable tempo and unbreakable chin.
In a battle of two getting older, creaky, generally lurching heavyweights, Jones completed Miocic with a spinning back-kick to the ribs within the second spherical. Whereas Miocic writhed in ache, Jones celebrated in the course of the ring with a dance mimicking Trump’s, pumping his arms into the air backwards and forwards. (Outdoors the ring, Trump could possibly be seen high-fiving Child Rock.) In his post-fight interview, Jones thanked Trump for attending, then led the gang in chants of “U.S.A.”
“I’m proud to be a terrific American champion,” Jones informed the gang. “I’m proud to be a Christian American champion.” He left the ring and gave Trump his championship belt. In that second, Jones appeared as an almost-mythological determine, a residing legend in a sport nonetheless being carved out of historical past. Standing eye to eye with him was Trump, who, in each manner, was being introduced by the U.F.C. as his non secular equal.
