Oiled-Up, Half-Naked Men Entertain President On 80th Birthday
And Dom was there.
A very reliable source told me the UFC Freedom 250 mixed martial arts cage fight on the South Lawn of the White House would happen regardless of the blistering heat, or forecasted rainstorms. The only thing that would stop it, my source told me, was lightning.
For two days, Washington DC forecasts from NOAA said to expect “Showers and thunderstorms” in the evening. On the morning of the fight, NOAA reported, “Chance of precipitation is 70%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible.”
Something around $30 million dollars was spent to turn the South Lawn of the White House into a giant cage fighting ring called “The Claw.” Behind it, on The Ellipse, was a small UFC festival. There was a large stage; scantily clad ring-girls; dumpy MAGA dudes in America-themed sleeveless T-shirts; bars shilling $12 Budweiser, $20 whiskey or tequila cocktails, $4 12 oz. cups of water; $25 burgers and kielbasas called “Giant Western Sausages”; portable chemical toilets; and two “free water” stations. There were two or three large stores offering a seemingly endless supply of UFC and Freedom 250 merchandise, like trading cards, T-shirts, hats, fingerless gloves and novelty championship belts.
Trump’s multi-million dollar birthday bash last year was a hot, soggy and comically boring military parade, a failure on literally everyone’s part.
So I wasn’t surprised to see the fights carry on past midnight. A lot of money had been spent for the celebration of the American president’s 80th birthday. Those fights were going to happen regardless of what nature decided: It’s the American way.
A prominent DC-based journalist told me that most of the usual White House press corps were denied any sort of press credentials.
“It’s like they only gave ‘em to the UFC bloggers,” my colleague said with malice on Saturday at the Fan Experience. “We’re giving them free exposure, I just don’t understand what the hell they’re thinking!”
It should be noted that general admission tickets to the Fan Experience on the Ellipse were free, and seemingly given out at random to anyone who signed up on the UFC site. There were also some special VIP packages for deep-pocketed investors that ranged up to $1.5 million.
When my colleague asked how in the hell I managed to get in, I pointed to my friend, fellow freelance journalist and MMA fan, Laura Jedeed, who had been sitting next to me. She’d gotten tickets and invited me, I explained. And because of the obscenely high security, I couldn’t bring anything other than a phone and a notepad. We had to rawdog the story, I joked.
But why not? It’s a goddamn UFC fight on the South Lawn! It’s like a grisly highway crash that backs up traffic for miles. Eventually, you creep close enough to submit to your lesser human instincts and gawk like a shaved ape when you finally pass the smoldering wreckage.
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Getting into the UFC Freedom 250 Fan Experience was a pain in the ass. A line would form, then a mass of people would sprint to form another queue. Laura and I found ourselves running with the crowd three different times. During one of these sprints, I saw a federal agent agent on 17th Street in full battle rattle staring confused at the flood rushing past. I lifted my hands up and shrugged. The agent laughed.
When the queues finally stopped amid lanes of bicycle barriers, the crowd was standing along humid, sun-drenched Constitution Avenue. It was around 1:00 p.m., and already above 90 degrees Fahrenheit; with the scorching asphalt and sea of people packed together, it wasn’t long before the crowd was pleading for water and several people started passing out.
An elderly woman began to squat, and complained of a headache and nausea. Young men began to disrobe and fan themselves with their sleeveless shirts. A crewman had to wipe the lens of a temporary security camera.
Laura and I mused that this sort of scene happens at a lot of Trump rallies.
There was an eclectic mix of people in line with us. One guy with trading cards claimed to be from Hawaii. There was an elderly woman and her grandson from New Brunswick, Canada. A gay man with a Jheri-curled mullet from West Hollywood said his friends loved to give him shit over Trump and UFC. We joked that the most homoerotic American thing was a bunch of sweaty, half-naked men beating the shit out of each other on the White House lawn.
The phrase that even the AP has used to describe the UFC Freedom 250 is “bread and circuses.” (Laura called it “Temu Rome.”) It’s a fancy and derogatory way of calling something a distraction for a faltering war effort, mounting economic pressure, unpopular social policies, and/or a perception of government corruption. The Roman people were given free wheat and Colosseum games to keep them from rising up against the state.
We didn’t find any free bread, but there was certainly a circus full of free crap.
Meta, the company formerly known as Facebook, had several tents. One of them scanned your body and face. Allegedly, this created a personal, digitized “action-figure,” but it just looked like a 16-bit pixelated character that made fight poses. I’m guessing it’s like NFTs, but more sketchy.
Total Wireless (formerly Tracfone, now a budget subsidiary of Verizon) had a tent where young men were encouraged to take off their shirts and strike a rather embarrassing muscle-man pose. Another tent allowed you to pose with a mock UFC championship belt. A third allowed people to make fake promo UFC videos.
There was a trailer selling Bud Light. And an octagonal bar that also sold Bud Light. There was a trailer with the Budweiser Clydesdales. And a trailer with Budweiser memorabilia.
There was also a Monster Energy drink tent passing out free cans. People could get a free drink and pose for a photo with UFC ring girls. Because the overpriced beverage stations were only giving out 12-ounce plastic Freedom 250 commemorative cups with a $4 water (or 16-ounce cup with beer), we debated waiting in the absurdly long line just to get a 16-ounce can we could refill at one of the two “free water” stations next to the medical tents.
Over at the RAM booth, there were several trucks and a bucking bronco. Every so often, a racing truck would do burnouts, sending plumes of burnt rubber smoke through the air. The booth had two large vertical ports for a pyrotechnics display that shot flames intermittently. Every time the tiny truck revved its massive engine I had to wonder how much gasoline and rubber were just wasted in the midst of a global energy crisis started by the people in the White House.
As the day wore on, I found myself dragging my feet and unable to think. I wasn’t just bored, I was severely dehydrated and overheated. I trudged my way over to the medical tent and strung together enough words to get myself treated by the members of the White House Medical team administering first aid.
Later, after Laura and I regrouped, I mentioned to her that this was the first time I could recall receiving free government-sponsored medical treatment. It wasn’t much — a lot of water with electrolyte powder, a short ice bath, and some seemingly freshly baked cookies — but it was still free medical care at the hands of an overworked but still attentive US government medical team. As a freelance photographer, I don’t have health insurance, so it had literally been years since someone put a stethoscope on my chest or took a glucose reading.
With the sun fading, and the “ceremonial weigh-in” underway, the fighters were paraded out to do face-offs and wrestling promos. Not being at all familiar with UFC, I told Laura that all the fights seemed arranged to guide towards a particular outcome. I wasn’t surprised to read that Josh Hokit insulted former First Lady Michelle Obama after winning his fight last night, screaming that she’s a man. Hokit was the flag-wrapped douchebag who showed up to the actual weigh-in drunk and vomited on himself. He fought Derrick “The Black Beast” Lewis, a big Black guy from New Orleans who, after doing three years in prison, became an MMA fighter.
I’m not saying the matches are fake (or kayfabe), but as someone working in media production for 20 years, there is very clearly a narrative design. American Justin Gaethje defeated Georgia’s Ilia Topuria to become the new Lightweight Champion in what’s being called a surprising upset. American “Suga” Sean O’Malley defeated Quebec’s Aiemann Zahabi. And Brazil’s Maurício Ruffy’s defeat of Michael Chandler in a first round knockout seems to have surprised sports bloggers.
A military veteran and lefty gun owner, Laura specifically told me she’s a fan of mixed martial arts, not the UFC. She “hates, hates hates” that UFC has taken the focus away from the original premise: two equal fighters, male or female, squaring off in a ring until only one is left standing.
UFC seemingly has more in common with the multi-billion-dollar heterosexual male soap opera spectacle that is commonly known as the WWE. Hell, the WWE had a mini-wrestling ring there, and a giant championship belt to pose in front of. Both franchises have always had crossover, but UFC fights are too much like their overly dramatic, character-driven bullshit. They do comically over-the-top “interviews” and promos where the fighters are just insulting each other, or making embarrassing attempts at stringing together enough words to form a coherent sentence.
Once the fake weigh-in was over, it seemed like three-quarters of the crowd immediately left. The Zac Brown Band took the stage with a high-tempo cover of “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” I decided to leave early too. That twangy, low-effort formula commonly found in commercially popular American country music has just never been my thing.
Apparently, Zac Brown told what’s left of the dwindling crowd that anyone who didn’t like the event shouldn’t live in America. Allegedly, Brown said it is un-American not to like UFC. And I suppose that tracks: I’m half-Canadian.
After escaping through an emergency access exit, I dragged myself up 14th Street toward the White House. I saw the Herbert C. Hoover Federal Building draped in Freedom 250 flag banners. It reminded me of old press clippings and photos of Germany in the 1930s.
When I was finally able to catch a glimpse of The Claw, I wasn’t sure what to think. White spotlights pierced the night sky. A series of red, white and blue tentacles were emerging from beneath the tree line, like some real life Americanized eldritch horror-fantasy. A couple cops and federal agents in tactical gear were milling around near a BearCat. I heard the unmistakable hiss of cans being cracked open, men cheering and saw several agents clink their cans together.
Then I heard the words of the late German impressionist painter, Max Liebermann, echoing in my ear:
“Ich kann gar nicht so viel fressen, wie ich kotzen möchte.”
Roughly translated, it means: “I could not eat as much as I want to vomit.” As the story goes, Lieberman uttered those words in Berlin as the Nazis passed through Brandenburg Gate.
Solid report, Dom. Subjecting the crowds to heat and dehydration while they wait for belligerent choads to kick the shit out of each other in ridiculous alpha male pageantry while being subjected to corporate sponsorship propaganda on the lawn of The People's House seems a perfectly apt metaphor for how obscene and embarrassing it all is.
"Oiled-Up, Half-Naked Men ...".
AKA, buttery males.