For the most part, the UFC event on the South Lawn of the White House was exactly what critics expected it to be: It was vulgar and obnoxious. It was violent and tacky. It was classless and unbecoming of a once-great institution. It even faced credible allegations of corruption.
For Donald Trump, who threw this ridiculous birthday party for himself, it was an expensive and needlessly self-indulgent circus. The New York Times’ Michelle Goldberg made a compelling case that the gathering was “a garish spectacle of American decline,” reminiscent of the 2006 satire “Idiocracy,” which “depicts a United States led by a professional wrestler whose middle name is Mountain Dew.”
But as the dust settles on the event, and the “claw” is dissembled, one element of this gathering continues to stand out.
In an opinion column for the Times, New York magazine’s Will Leitch noted, “In many ways, the sight of blood-spattered U.F.C. fighters kicking and punching each other was less jarring than seeing them do it while members of the military stood by and saluted the fighters.”
Sunday night’s gathering was not merely a UFC event; it was an event that intertwined the sport and the armed forces in ways that were tough to defend. Historian Heather Cox Richardson noted the trouble began the day before the fights. From her Substack column:
[On Saturday night], while workers were putting up scaffolding at the Kennedy Center, Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) fighters held a press conference at the Lincoln Memorial in advance of the UFC cage matches to be held at the White House on Trump’s 80th birthday on Sunday. Trump sent the United States Army Herald Trumpets, the U.S. Army ensemble chiefly responsible for playing the entrance and exit fanfares for the President of the United States, to open the event.
The fighters walked from Lincoln’s statue down the steps of the memorial through the Armed Forces Full Honor Cordon, a pathway formed between two groups made up of sixteen service members in dress uniforms. This is the U.S. military’s highest ceremonial formation, usually reserved for heads of state, foreign dignitaries, senior officials, and funerals for military heroes.
A day later, the event began in earnest with the U.S. Marine Corps Silent Drill Platoon. Writing for The Bulwark, Mark Hertling added, “This was not just a matter of military musicians (in this case, the Marine Band and Army Band), a flyover (in this case, both the Thunderbirds and the Blue Angels), and a joint color guard representing each service branch presenting the flag. There were also officers serving as aides to VIPs, standing in formation and escorting civilians. There were members of the National Guard providing site security alongside various federal civilian police.”
At one point, Goldberg’s column noted, the audience saw “a Marine Corps honor guard onstage with ring girls in sparkly red hot pants and a human-size Monster Energy Drink can.”