Punches and controversies to celebrate Trump's 80th birthday

Washington“Don't come near me!”, Ilia Topuria shouted at the North American Justin Gaethje on Friday in front of thousands of people. "Why, are you going to hit me? Come on, do it! I'm quite close!" Before he knew it, the lightweight champion had already given his rival a surprise shove. It was during the presentation of the fight that the two fighters will star in this Sunday at the White House, which will coincide with Donald Trump's 80th birthday.

Both, elegantly dressed, stood at the foot of the six-meter statue of Abraham Lincoln. Exactly where Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his iconic "I Have a Dream" speech in 1963, with which he called for an end to segregation. It was also where Barack Obama spoke, in front of hundreds of thousands of people, two days before being inaugurated as the first black president in the country's history.

But the crowd that is gathering at the Lincoln Memorial this weekend has not come to demand the right to vote, nor to celebrate a new president. They have come to see their favorite fighters, take pictures of them, and enjoy the spectacle that the Trump administration has organized for the tycoon's birthday, even though the government maintains that it is to celebrate the country's 250th anniversary. A spectacle in which they expect to see full-body blows, strangulations, and blood in a completely unusual setting, the White House, and with equally unusual attendees, such as the president, his cabinet, congressmen, and renowned businessmen.

It is known that Donald Trump likes spectacle and pushing boundaries, and this birthday could not be different. Last year he celebrated it with a large military parade that toured Washington, the same one that the Pentagon advised him not to carry out during his first term to avoid the politicization of the armed forces and excessive spending. On this occasion, the American president has decided to celebrate it with seven mixed martial arts fights in the South Garden of the White House, the place he usually uses to get on and off his Marine One, and which until now had never hosted a professional sporting event.

The iconic garden, the same one in which former President Theodore Roosevelt put a tennis court in 1902, and to which Obama timidly added a basketball court in 2009, has been chosen to install a huge ring, stands to seat about 5,000 spectators, and a 600-ton steel dome, which he has nicknamed "the claw".

According to Dana White, the president of Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC), the company that organizes the event, the idea was Trump's, who now suggests keeping the stage permanently. "In Paris, the Eiffel Tower was built in 1889. It was supposed to be taken down immediately after the World's Fair, and then they argued that since they liked it, they would leave it a little longer. And then they said a little longer, and a little longer, and a little longer. And well, they never took it down," the president said in a TikTok video. "And you know, we're building something in front of the White House that turns out to be quite attractive to many people. And maybe we'll never take it down." All in all, organizing the event has cost the UFC 60 million dollars.

Criticism and support from justice

"I think UFC fights are great. I enjoy watching them, but to be honest, I don't think they should be held in the White House garden," said former congresswoman and staunch Trump supporter Marjorie Taylor Greene, one of many people who have criticized the event. "And I don't think American taxpayers should have to pay for it. We have many other important things we should be paying for," she argued.

An anti-corruption group filed a lawsuit last week to try to prevent the fights from happening, arguing that they constitute the holding of a private, for-profit event in a space where this is restricted, and that Trump is favoring a company in which he himself is an investor. But on Friday, a federal judge ruled that it could go ahead. Only 16% of Americans consider this celebration appropriate, according to a Reuters and Ipsos poll.

The fights are scheduled to begin this Sunday night, Washington time. And the White House continues to promote the event on its social networks with artificial intelligence-generated images of Uncle Sam, the iconic character representing the U.S. since the mid-19th century, dressed as a mixed martial arts fighter and hitting his opponent in the ring. The promotional videos also show that the event is sponsored by the cryptocurrency trading website crypto.com and the betting website Polymarket.

As a first course for the president's birthday celebration, this Saturday a motorcycle exhibition took place at the White House, with riders performing somersaults and tricks over the outdoor fighting octagon. But the main course is the seven mixed martial arts fights, culminating in the bout between Ilia Topuria, a 29-year-old Georgian-Spanish fighter and current UFC lightweight world champion, and Justin Gaethje, a 37-year-old American from Arizona. A fight with the potential to go down in history.