UFC’s White House Fight Night May Have Been An Unforgivable Folly, But At Least It Was Violent And Offensive

Donald Trump’s 80th birthday weekend didn’t all go well for him, at home or abroad. His name finally got pulled off the Kennedy Center early Saturday, after lots of effort to halt and obscure the removal. And word got out that the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool that the president desperately wants credit for beautifying was already taken over by algae. Then there’s the matter of his dumbass and deadly Iran invasion ending in his thorough embarrassment. But, UFC Freedom 250, the bizarre fight card that Trump hosted on the damn South Lawn of the damn White House, allegedly to celebrate our country’s sestercentennial but really to glorify and enrich himself and his lousy rich friends, went off without much of a hitch. I’m not sure, as the administration and UFC boss Dana White would want me to believe, that my Uncle Pat lost his leg while storming the beach at Normandy so I and 80,000 others could drink bottomless cans of zero-sugar energy drinks on federal land while guys beat the holy hell out of each other. But the bouts, all of which ended in KO’s, weren't made any better or worse for their setting. Trump and his UFC pals made endless attempts to link the pugilistic proceedings to patriotism, each effort more hamfisted than the last. The hamfisticuffs peaked with featherweight Secretary of State Marco Rubio comparing hosting the fight card to putting a man on the moon.