December Issue
Pracheth Sanka
December
On Nov. 2, 2019, a packed Madison Square Garden awaits a night of fights, with tens of thousands in attendance for Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) 244, the promotion's penultimate Pay-Per-View of the year. Sometime before the main card begins, the crowd erupts. Split half into boos and half into cheers, one would expect the noise to have emerged from a fighter’s walkout, a spectacular knockout or a controversial judge’s decision. But the actual cause was unexpected: the President of the United States had just entered the arena.
Amid a historic impeachment inquiry, then-President Donald Trump took a cage-side seat, accompanied by UFC President Dana White, then-California Representative Kevin McCarthy, and his two sons. Signs both in support and disapproval of the President dotted the stands, greeting him as he became the first sitting U.S. President to attend a live mixed martial arts event.
Nearly five years later, Trump’s appearance is almost commonplace. Most recently, he attended UFC 309 as a post-election victory party and he was spotted at UFC 302 in early June, just days after his 34-count felony conviction. These last few times, though, the crowd response was less mixed. Often, as the jumbotron’s video feed pans over, UFC commentator Jon Anik’s voice excitedly announces the politician’s presence to a roaring crowd, highlighting the shift in support among the promotion’s fanbase.
This rightward trend isn’t only seen with ardent UFC fans, but also among the promotion’s fighters. Take Colby Covington, the former interim welterweight champion, who turned into a pro-wrestler-esque, ‘Make America Great Again’ (MAGA) villain after nearly being dropped from the active roster, hoping to strike a chord with the UFC’s more conservative viewers. Covington later became the first champion to visit the White House, meeting with Trump in 2018, donning a red MAGA hat and his welterweight champion’s belt.
Or take the heaps of Brazilian fighters who support former right-wing and populist President Jair Bolsonaro. Many of them came forward backing his attempted coup of early 2023, and former featherweight champion and UFC legend José Aldo provided refuge for Bolsonaro’s self-exile at his Florida home.
While conservatism is prevalent in sports generally, the UFC and combat sports as a whole seem to elicit an especially strong right-wing response from both fans and fighters. Could it be an appeal to the strong, masculine energy of hand-to-hand combat, an ode to orthodox gender values that traditionalists adhere to? Add in the fact that fighting is, at its core, the most basic and primitive test of dominance and strength, then the sport is prime to be a breeding ground for right-wing thought.
The essence of mixed martial arts also directly contradicts the collectivist tendencies so often seen on the left. The one-on-one nature of the sport lends itself to individualism, where the fighter's only hope is themselves and they can’t rely on teammates for help. Unlike in professional team sports, fighters must find their own gyms and individually train to stay in shape and prepare for fights. Fighters also have little support from the promotion itself, as the UFC only pays around 15 percent of their revenue share to fighters, as compared to the 50 percent share that the major American sports leagues give out. This means that not only are fighters competing for wins, but they also compete for bigger contracts and sponsorships. When lower-tier fighters make as little as $12,000 per fight, competition becomes fierce as the fight market takes on a strong, capitalist form.
Fighter’s backgrounds often contribute to their conservative tendencies. From religious views to country of origin, many fighters have experienced a notably conservative upbringing. As Muslim UFC stars with socially traditional viewpoints continue to dominate the sport, their beliefs are becoming more frequently expressed in fight media. Former lightweight champion and widely considered the “Greatest of All Time”, Khabib Nurmagomedov was not shy about professing certain conservative opinions, notably expressing his distaste for the not-so-modestly dressed UFC ring girls. As many fighters also hail from post-Soviet and post-communist states, there are socio-political reasons for espousing conservative values in mixed martial arts. For former welterweight Jorge Masvidal, who headlined the Trump-attended UFC 244, his personal experience with Cuban socialism pushed him to be a passionate opponent of left-wing causes, even using his final in-octagon appearance to support Trump and Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.
This prevailing conservatism ends up having often hilarious, but sometimes serious, political consequences. For one, it gives a voice to fringe, more extreme voices who would have stayed quiet if not for their UFC fame. Look no further than Bryce Mitchell, the camo-wearing featherweight who was propelled into stardom after a string of wins earlier this decade. He’s often seen on mixed martial arts-adjacent podcasts espousing his views of flat-earth theory and conspiratorial claims that the U.S. education system is indoctrinating the youth into communism. Or look at UFC veteran Tito Ortiz, who ran for office in bright red Huntington Beach, California on an anti-mask and anti-vaccine platform. Elected as mayor pro-tempore, he resigned just half a year later, citing character assassination and political persecution as his main reasons for doing so.
Out-of-cage antics aside, conservative fighters often use their post-bout moments of fame to proselytize, taking full advantage of their winner’s interviews to share their opinions with the fight world. In 2021, lightweight contender Beneil Dariush dedicated his UFC 262 victory to those hurt by Marxist ideologies while also praising tech-capitalist Elon Musk, encouraging those in the audience to consider buying Tesla cars.
But along with these trivial moments come real political repercussions that originate from the fight world. Ultra-conservative Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov has used his region’s talented fighters to penetrate the highest ranks of the sport, funding mixed martial arts as a way to disseminate his beliefs onto the world’s stage. Podcaster Joe Rogan, who first achieved fame as a UFC color commentator, hosted then-presidential candidate Trump a few days before the general election. In a conversation that included discussing Trump’s favorite fighters and propagating conspiracies about a stolen election, his victory may have been aided by this last-minute publicity.
As mixed martial arts is becoming ever-popular in the mainstream and among a seemingly global right-wing shift, the intersection of the sport and politics can have major implications. As younger people begin to watch the sport in greater numbers, the prevalence of conservative beliefs can shape an entire generation's worldview, leaving lasting impacts on the future of politics. If the right wing, as they have in the past, continue to capitalize on the sport’s inherent conservative inclinations, not only will they see victories on fight night, but on election night too.