Donald Trump has never hidden his fascination with symbols of brutal and unsubtle virility. But since his return to the White House, this obsession seems to have transformed into a full-fledged political strategy. By joining forces with the American mixed martial arts organization, the UFC, the re-elected president is pushing his efforts even further to embody the warrior leader of an America in a state of permanent war – even if it means blurring the boundaries between the political arena and the fighting ring.
Ten months after the start of his second term, Donald Trump now appears as much in stadiums as in meeting rooms. Super Bowl, university wrestling championship, NASCAR: no opportunity to demonstrate force escapes him. In Daytona – a city in Florida, known for its automobile racing circuits – he greeted the drivers in his armored limousine before congratulating them for their “courage”. A few weeks later, he denounced the NFL’s new anti-concussion rule as a sign of “national weakness.” Next June, he plans to hold an MMA fight on the South Lawn of the White House, with weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial and punching bags for tourists.
The event, announced as a prelude to the celebrations of the 250th anniversary of the United States, is not insignificant. This is a new chapter in a long history between Donald Trump and combat sports. Since the 1980s, the businessman-turned-president has worked to capture the popular energy of sport and channel it towards his own image. After a failure in American football, he invested in boxing, organizing a record fight in 1988 between Mike Tyson and Michael Spinks in Atlantic City. That evening, Donald Trump was already dreaming of himself as the promoter of a total spectacle where glory, violence and politics mix, summarizes an article in The Atlantic.
It is with MMA and the UFC that he found his most natural field of expression. The organization, long considered a barbaric spectacle, has built its success on a simple promise: no rules, or almost no rules. This philosophy of absolute confrontation fits perfectly with the way in which Donald Trump conceives politics. Its alliances prove it: its communications director worked for the UFC, Linda McMahon – former director of World Wrestling Entertainment, the American company specializing in the organization of wrestling tournaments – sits in its government, and even the director of the FBI, Kash Patel, is considering cooperation with the league to “train federal agents”.
Donald Trump, first supporter of MMA
The UFC, born from provocative marketing touting fights “to the death,” has always flirted with transgression, and that is precisely what attracts Donald Trump. When the discipline was still banned in many states, he was already giving it a stage in his New Jersey casinos. Dana White, boss of the UFC and loyal supporter of the president, likes to recall that Donald Trump was “the first to believe” in their success. This reciprocal loyalty today goes beyond a simple commercial partnership: it reflects a common vision where brutality becomes a political value.
Donald Trump has gradually imported this logic of permanent combat into public life. On the very evening of his criminal conviction in 2024, he appeared triumphantly near an octagon in New Jersey, greeted by a crowd chanting vulgar slogans against Joe Biden. These scenes, formerly confined to MMA cages, now contaminate the stands of golf or American football. During the last Ryder Cup, heated spectators insulted Northern Irish player Rory McIlroy and threw a beer at his wife. Sport thus becomes the mirror of an America where defeat no longer exists and where the humiliation of others is part of the game.
Because behind these demonstrations, it is no longer just a question of seducing thrill-seeking male voters. The “MAGA-fication” of sport aims broader: it seeks to elevate violence into a legitimate political language, to delegitimize any notion of limits, even symbolic ones. Where George HW Bush made the White House lawn a horseshoe playground, Donald Trump wants to build an arena of raw violence. The message is clear: no line is insurmountable for the American president.
This mixture of political testosterone and spectacle seduces a part of America which dreams of itself invincible, but it also contains a cultural poison: that of a nation which confuses courage and aggressiveness, adversaries and enemies, victory and annihilation.
