Donald Trump Hosts UFC Cage Show on White House South Lawn for 80th Birthday

President Donald Trump is hosting an eight-sided, wire-mesh cage UFC show on the White House South Lawn to celebrate his 80th birthday on Sunday.

“History records Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th president of the United States, as having practiced boxing, while the 31st president Herbert Hoover played a game named after him to get more exercise, and President Richard Nixon bowled, and Dwight D”

Al-Jazeera Net

The Independent describes the setup as including an open overhead dome, large screens, and thousands of arena seats, transforming a space previously known for low-contact sports and family-friendly events like the annual Easter Egg Roll or the congressional picnic.

Al-Jazeera Net

The Pasadena Star News (AP) says the UFC event will feature a hulking structure with a complicated overhead lighting scheme known as "The Claw," and it frames the plan as a departure from T-ball and other pastimes associated with earlier presidents.

Michael Patrick Cullinane, senior historian at the Theodore Roosevelt Presidential Library, is quoted saying, "Sports has been central to presidents. I don’t know that it’s been quite the spectacle that it is with the Trump administration," as the South Lawn shifts toward cage fighting.

The Independent recounts that Teddy Roosevelt boxed, Richard Nixon bowled, and Dwight D. Eisenhower installed a putting green, while George H.W. Bush added a horseshoe pit and Herbert Hoover played a game named for himself to get more exercise.

The Pasadena Star News (AP) adds that George H.W. Bush reinstalled a horseshoe pit in 1989 and that George W. Bush opened the space for youth T-ball, with Trump’s UFC spectacle presented as a further break from those norms.

Indy100

Cullinane is also quoted in the Pasadena Star News (AP) discussing Roosevelt’s tennis, saying Roosevelt did so "long and vigorously," and it notes Roosevelt took the court daily at 3 p.m., rain or shine.

The Independent says Trump has even begun suggesting the cage-fighting venue could become a permanent fixture on the South Lawn, and it ties that idea to the sense that the White House has moved far from T-ball.

Indy100 quotes presidential historian Tevi Troy describing the UFC event as "a combination of athletic event and a celebrity event," and it says Troy noted that Trump "goes to find his celebrities where he can."

“By WILL WEISSERT WASHINGTON (AP) — Teddy Roosevelt boxed”

Pasadena Star News

Indy100 also reports that Cullinane said the UFC is "dominated by men and this idea of masculinity," adding that "whenever you aim for a certain demographic, you are almost naturally politicizing the sport."

The Pasadena Star News (AP) says Trump was asked about Roosevelt during a recent New York Post interview and replied that he "had a lot of energy, loved the outdoors," while indicating he knew about Roosevelt’s boxing but did not comment on how the UFC event might compare.

Al-Jazeera Net frames the preparations as centered on the eight-sided octagonal cage with an open-roof canopy, large screens, and thousands of seats, and it says the use of the South Lawn for a violent sport in celebration of a president who enjoys it embodies a tradition Trump ends with joy—or, in UFC terms, that forces it to surrender.