{"id":74872,"date":"2026-06-14T18:54:58","date_gmt":"2026-06-14T23:54:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/14\/ufc-freedom-250-white-house-hosts-mma-card-for-trumps-80th-birthday-live-updates\/"},"modified":"2026-06-14T18:54:58","modified_gmt":"2026-06-14T23:54:58","slug":"ufc-freedom-250-white-house-hosts-mma-card-for-trumps-80th-birthday-live-updates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/14\/ufc-freedom-250-white-house-hosts-mma-card-for-trumps-80th-birthday-live-updates\/","title":{"rendered":"UFC Freedom 250: White House hosts MMA card for Trump\u2019s 80th birthday \u2013\u00a0live updates"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jun\/13\/trump-ufc-birthday-white-house\">UFC takes over White House lawn for seven-fight card<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/2026\/jun\/14\/dana-white-ufc-donald-trump\">The stratospheric rise of the UFC\u2019s Dana White<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/us-news\/2026\/jun\/14\/white-house-ufc-fighters-crypto\">UFC to pay fighters in crypto from Trump company<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<li>\n<p>Reach out to Bryan on <a href=\"https:\/\/bsky.app\/profile\/bryanagraham.bsky.social\">Bluesky<\/a> or <a href=\"http:\/\/bryan.graham\/\">by email<\/a><\/p>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Beyond the octagon, the fighter walkouts and the spectacle of a UFC card on White House grounds lies another story: who gets access and what it costs.<\/strong> Sidney Blumenthal <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2026\/jun\/12\/trump-ufc-fighting-cage\">argues<\/a> that Sunday\u2019s event has become a nexus of political fundraising, corporate influence and presidential branding, with million-dollar donor dinners, seven-figure hospitality packages and a guest list that reads as a who\u2019s who of Trump\u2019s political and business network. For Blumenthal, the looming presence of \u201cthe Claw\u201d is merely the most visible symbol of a much larger transaction.<\/p>\n<p>Here\u2019s a look at tonight\u2019s seven-fight card (in reverse order). The first fight is expected to begin at 8pm ET, with the main event likely shortly before midnight depending on fight length and any weather delays.<\/p>\n<p>Ilia Topuria v Justin Gaethje, UFC lightweight championship unification (five rounds)<\/p>\n<p>Alex Pereira v Ciryl Gane, interim UFC heavyweight championship (five rounds)<\/p>\n<p>Sean O\u2019Malley v Aiemann Zahabi, bantamweights (three rounds)<\/p>\n<p>Maur\u00edcio Ruffy v Michael Chandler, lightweights (three rounds)<\/p>\n<p>Bo Nickal v Kyle Daukaus, middleweights (three rounds)<\/p>\n<p>Diego Lopes v Steve Garcia, featherweights (three rounds)<\/p>\n<p>Derrick Lewis v Josh Hokit, heavyweights (three rounds)<\/p>\n<p> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/sport\/live\/2026\/jun\/14\/ufc-freedom-250-fights-trump-white-house-live-blog\">Continue reading&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>UFC takes over White House lawn for seven-fight card The stratospheric rise of the UFC\u2019s Dana White UFC to pay fighters in crypto from Trump company Reach out to Bryan on Bluesky or by email Beyond the octagon, the fighter walkouts and the spectacle of a UFC card on White House grounds lies another story: &#8230; <a title=\"UFC Freedom 250: White House hosts MMA card for Trump\u2019s 80th birthday \u2013\u00a0live updates\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/2026\/06\/14\/ufc-freedom-250-white-house-hosts-mma-card-for-trumps-80th-birthday-live-updates\/\" aria-label=\"Read more about UFC Freedom 250: White House hosts MMA card for Trump\u2019s 80th birthday \u2013\u00a0live updates\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-74872","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74872","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=74872"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74872\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74872"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74872"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74872"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}