Dana White Betting on McGregor for White House Card Could Spell Disaster

While covering the Canelo vs. Crawford fight this past weekend, the thought that the UFC hadn’t had a fight of such magnitude in nearly eight years crossed my mind.

Luckily, for those who prefer entanglements in the octagon as opposed to the sweet science, the UFC will have its moment in the sun next summer when Dana White and Donald Trump combine to host a special UFC card at the White House in celebration of the United States’ 250th anniversary celebration on or around the Fourth of July.

Thanks to a monumental seven-year, $7.7 billion media deal that the UFC signed with Paramount last month, all indications are that this prospective White House card will air for a broadcast television audience on CBS. 

White has also made it clear that he’s eyeing Conor McGregor as one of the headliners for that prospective card.

When you combine the broadcast television factor with McGregor’s long-awaited return to the Octagon at an iconic, one-off venue like the White House, it’s almost guaranteed that the UFC will be looking at record viewership numbers if this event were to come fruition.

Still, as adamant as White has been that this event will happen and that McGregor will be on the card, it’s fair to be skeptical of a plan in the pipe dream stages.

White made the decision to essentially balk on having Jon Jones—the greatest American MMA fighter in history—headline the card, one of the reliability issues with the troubled superstar.

That’s why it also makes little sense from a logistical perspective for White to now put all of his eggs in the McGregor basket.

Aside from the fact that he’s only won one fight since the Obama administration, McGregor has spent the last four-plus years since his July 2021 injury-induced loss to Dustin Poirier embroiled in various criminal sexual assault cases.

More recently, McGregor has seemingly been more focused on his canceled Irish presidential campaign than a return to the Octagon. Although he did re-enter the USADA testing pool, which is a crucial first step.

While Jones has also dealt with his fair share of demons, the idea that he’s any less trustworthy than McGregor seems like a fallacy. However, for all of his troubles, McGregor is a much more proven draw for an event of this caliber and White also has experiences at the negotiating table with these men that surely influences his respective stances on them more than anything.

Constructing the UFC White House Event

Aside from the challenges of putting together a card that presents both mainstream viability and fights that matter in the current UFC ecosystem, there’s also the logistical challenges of putting together a prize fighting event on some of the nation’s most sacred ground.

A standard UFC Octagon weighs 25,000 pounds, which White has previously said is too heavy for the South Lawn. White also has aesthetic desires for the event, revealing on Logan Paul’s “Impaulsive” podcast last week that plans include a special lighting rig that allows for an entirely visible backdrop of the White House on one side and the Washington Monument on the other.

White has said that the plan is for 5,000 invited spectators to be seated on the South Lawn, while 85,000 more watch in a park that’s connected to the White House. Paul, in response, raised very legitimate concerns that a small, flat crowd could diminish the environment like the bouts at “Fight Island” and the UFC Apex during COVID and beyond.

If this event were designed only to be as aesthetically successful as possible, a huge crowd of fans on the South Lawn would be an undeniable plus. Security concerns make that all but impossible, however, so it seems White and Trump will have to work with the constraints. I don’t think they’ll have any trouble putting together a great event for the fans in D.C., but how it comes across on the television broadcast is a different story.

It’s pretty much certain that the event will be put on next summer, but skepticism about the card and the set-up of the event is still fair at this point. Will McGregor end up headlining? Frankly, I doubt it. Will the event still be successful otherwise? Time will tell, but White and his new partners at TKO already have proven success when handling endeavors of this magnitude.