The Current - How politics bleeds into the UFC and mixed martial arts

Episode Date: May 13, 2025

Mixed martial arts can count some big-name politicians among its millions of fans, with Donald Trump and Pierre Poilievre attending recent Ultimate Fighting Championship bouts. We dig into the sport��s intersection with politics, and the corners of the sport that seem to be embracing the manosphere, toxic masculinity and, in some cases, far-right figures.

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President-elect Donald Trump. That was US President Donald Trump's first public appearance after being re-elected last November. He chose to walk out to thunderous applause at an Ultimate Fighting Championship event. He was guaranteed to be seen by millions around the world since UFC has made mixed martial arts a global phenomenon. Action and reaction is a Toronto gym hoping to grow into a place where the next great UFC fighter trains. Here's the head coach Fernando Zulek. We are growing every month. Just to give you like numbers, let's say after COVID because it's more recent. There is an increase of like 200% in people calling us.

If we were getting like 50 phone calls today, now we are getting like 150 phone calls, like per month. Fighters here are hitting the heavy bag, they're grappling, they're kicking, and they love every moment of it. But they say this is about more than just the fighting. To me it feels like the purest form of fighting.

That is the closest thing to like I can do without any kind of restrictions. Because like kickboxing, you know, like you can get downs, I can drop a guy, but then I can't keep going after the ref will get in the way, he'll stop you, give them an 8 count. Which is good because you know, you don't want to kick someone on the ground. But like at the same time, the fight's not necessarily done there right a guy could still fully recover and be fine. Personally it's helped me a lot with my communication and kind of leadership because I've done a lot of teaching as well here at the gym and at my old university so I've kind of almost just kind of naturally fell into some

leadership positions it's forced me to take more responsibility look after others and just work on kind of my leadership and just communication skills overall. Make sure you're probing right away. Probing, good. Probing, two. Probing again, three. I had a high school teacher that was actually an MMA champion back in South Africa so he he really had a huge inspiration in terms of, you know, MMA. You know, I feel it's the masculinity urge. I feel like right now there's a decline in masculinity. So a lot of people are going towards MMA and just self-defense because, quite frankly, a lot of men in this day and age don't know how to defend themselves

and don't know how to stand up for themselves. So I feel like just because MMA is a popping thing right now, like it's big in North America, actually around the world, so just the urge to learn how to fight, defend yourself, stand up for yourself. Yeah, man, that's what masculinity is all about, being able to protect yourself and your family. Oh, the move from yesterday. Look at this guy. He's warming up. That's what mass country is all about, being able to protect yourself and your family. Oh, the move from yesterday. Look at this guy, he's learning.

Grab both his wrists. Across town is Reign Martial Arts. They were hosting a women-only Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu class on a hot Saturday morning. The door was wide open. BJJ is one of the core martial arts integral to any MMA fighter we caught up with coach Roya Sawari and student Aisulu Baibalova she goes by the handle ice. My name is Roya Sawari so I competed for Team Canada in 2019. I fought against Korea and I was able to secure gold. So I was happy for Team Canada at that time. So at first I was like, okay, wow, there's no women here, there's no ladies.

It's just like the two of us. So I guess we're gonna partner up. We need a secure, safe place, an environment where we won't be hurt because they say, okay, not to use your strength and this and that and it's for the Smaller person but you have to actually be able to see that so at the time when I was doing jujitsu I did get better because there's a lot of guys smashing me for a small person So my defense is great, but I wish there were more women because we roll differently

I'm glad that now we have the women's classes and it's growing like our numbers have increased So I've been really surprised at that I'm gonna try to take your back I know Hands on the hip eyes and then posture up. Yeah, hold that and grab your base 34 seconds Grab your base. 34 seconds. I think I just want a new hobby.

I got bored of just going to the gym and lifting weights. So I wanted to try something new. I think as a woman, you know, you think about self-defense and protecting yourself. I love it here, honestly. It's such a welcoming environment and there's no push to compete. A lot of families come here and for me that's important. You know as a woman martial arts spaces they're mostly dominated by men so for me personally it was really important to find a space where women can learn, can thrive and there's you know there's no macho culture that's important for me. All right, thank you so much for coming.

I hope you guys use that Dela Hiva Pass. It's one of my favorites. I'm going to try it. Once my foot gets better. I actually really want to be good at that. As you heard, an experience with mixed martial arts can be very different depending on the gym. In recent years, the sport has also taken on

a political bent. Politicians are often spotted in the crowd. At this past Saturday's fight in Montreal, conservative Leroy Pierre Poliev fist bumped the night's Canadian winner. UFC has also become a place where what it means to be for some a man in 2025 is front and center. Sam Egan is a freelance reporter who has written

for the New Yorker and vice among many other news outlets. He produces the New Yorker's podcast, The Political Scene. He covers sports, politics and masculinity. He's in our New York City studio. Sam, good morning. Good morning, Matt. UFC was once dismissed by Senator John McCain as human cockfighting.

How popular is Ultimate Fighting now? It's very mainstream, right? Indeed. Yeah. I mean, I would say that it's a global phenomenon at this point. It's an 11 billion dollar company. It's selling out, nearly selling out stadiums in Montreal. It's sold out O2 Arena.

It sold out MSG recently in November. It is maybe the largest countercultural sport in the world, I would say. Who is the primary audience for UFC? I think probably like an 18 to 35 demographic. I'm not sure that the audience skews as conservative as the sort of thought leaders in the sport of MMA, but I'd say 18 to 35 year old men on average. When you say that it's the largest countercultural sport, what do you mean by that? I think the UFC does a very good job despite despite the size that it's grown to, of marketing

itself as sort of retaining the sort of counter-cultural edge that it had at the time when you mentioned John McCain described it as human cockfighting when the sport first emerged in 1993, when it was strictly one martial art versus another martial art. There were no gloves. There were barely any rules. There was no time limits. Despite the, like, sort of, it's now been largely legitimized and standardized, and there's a standardized rule set, they have done a very, very good job of cultivating an image,

a countercultural image to this day. I mentioned that the Canadian conservative leader, Pierre Poliev, was at the fight in Montreal on the weekend. Donald Trump regularly shows up at UFC events as well. What is it about this sport that has made it an attractive place for politicians, particularly conservative politicians to be seen? Well, I think it started with Trump, right? And I think with Trump, there's a few things.

Trump is not strictly a political animal. He had a long life prior to his foray into politics. He, by all accounts, is a pretty earnest fan of combat sports and boxing and mixed martial arts. He made an appearance a few years ago on the UFC's podcast where he spoke with a UFC commentator and a former champion by the name of Matt Serra. They spent the better part of an hour just talking about old boxing matches from the 80s that happened at Trump's venue at Trump Taj Mahal and other fights and Trump recalled them very, very, very accurately and with great enthusiasm.

So part of it is that he is earnestly a fan of these sports. I mean, there's also just, it's very, I think it speaks to his sort of camp show businessy aesthetic. I think fight sports sort of mix theatrics and violence in a kind of unique way that speaks to Trump's personal brand. There's also just, I think, Trump has a great understanding of optics. And his first appearance after his election in November could have been anywhere in the world. He's literally the most powerful person on the planet. He chose a UFC event at Madison Square Garden. At the end of the night, UFC champion John Jones, who by all accounts is the greatest

martial artist, mixed martial artist of all time, wins his title fight, retains his title, does a Trump dance, and then sort of walks to the side of the arena and shouts out Trump and declares himself like a great, that he's proud to be a great American Christian champion and shouts out Trump and then goes over and shakes his hand and Trump gets this photo op with literally one of the most dangerous people on the planet, one of the most quote unquote masculine people you can possibly imagine, you know, and- And the crowd goes wild. And the crowd goes wild. dangerous people on the planet, one of the most quote-unquote masculine people you can possibly imagine, you know, and-

And the crowd goes wild. The crowd goes wild. And in that moment, you know, if you're a young man in that 18 to 35 demo, you're watching this fight, you know, maybe your politics are not super well formulated yet. You're saying, oh, you know, John Jones is a man. He's clearly revering Trump. That must mean that Trump is a man, you know? So he understands that image very well.

And I think that politicians like Poliev are trying to mirror that. I want to come back to the man piece in a moment. But this is connected in many ways, and it's connected through Trump. UFC is owned by Dana White. Who's Dana White? Dana White is the CEO of the UFC.

He's been with the UFC since 2001. Prior to that, he was a boxer-size instructor and a manager for a couple of prominent fighters. The UFC was nearly bankrupt in 2001 when Dana White and his friends, the Fertitta brothers, who were casino magnates in Las Vegas, purchased the company. And he credits Donald Trump in some ways was saving UFC Right. He does indeed. Yes. So in in 2001 right after they bought the company The first event that that white and the four cheater brothers hosted was at Trump Taj Mahal They couldn't they couldn't get anybody to host an event because again the sport had been basically regulated out of existence and

Trump agreed to host not only UFC 30 but the next event too, UFC 31. So at this point the company was barely basically destitute and Trump kind of pulled it out of the ashes and he credits him with that to this day. He also thinks what he said in the piece that you wrote where you spoke with Dana White, he says that Donald Trump is tougher and more badass than anybody. Yeah, he does. I mean, he specifically, I think, cited that photo up, I wouldn't call it a photo, the photo of Trump after he, after the attempted assassination and him, you know, raising his fist into the air and that he couldn't imagine anybody else in the world doing that. And he's very careful when he speaks about Trump to always talk about...

He rarely ventures into politics. COVID is kind of one of the few things he'll often dive into. But he's very careful when he talks about Trump, to speak to him as a friend and as a person and as a man. And I find that very interesting. I'm Sarah Trelevin, and for over a year, I've been working on one of the most complex stories I've ever covered.

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it needs to be. And in some ways, this is a way for him, uh, as a fighter, uh, to help bring masculinity back to a certain arena. You often hear that. You mean people, Mark Zuckerberg, head of META, um, who's been training in MMA for years, talks about, um, the need for masculine energy.

What is it, as you understand it, that UFC fans find attractive about that idea of masculinity, that vision of masculinity? I think, I mean, to come back to the counterculture, I think a lot of that image stems from COVID. At the height of COVID in 2020 and 2021, it was, Dana White and the USC were the first sort of sporting company to bring back events. And they, COVID obviously spread largely in March. By May, they were hosting events again in Florida. And then in July, they had already, they started hosting events at quote unquote Fight Island in Abu Dhabi.

This is when there were no sports that seemed to be happening. No NBA, no NHL, nothing. So if you were a young man and you wanted to watch sports and you turn on the TV, you're either going to go on YouTube and you're going to watch, you know, NHL highlights or, you know, old NBA games or you can go watch live UFC events. And, you know, at this time, like, you know, Dana White is these fights are happening on Fight Island and in isolation in Florida. And then he's going on the mic and he's kind of he's kind of attacking, you know, COVID restrictions and attacking isolation policies and painting them as being damaging

to young people, as being damaging to business. And I think that that kind of revitalized the counter-cultural image of the UFC. It had become quite mainstream at that point I mean like I think I think beginning with with kind of the craze around Conor McGregor in 2016. It had been pretty Pretty mainstreamed and I think that was kind of the beginning of the pivot back into the I mean And then I think as far as the as far as the appeal to masculinity I mean from my own experience and I was a division one wrestler to this day I fight I also write and I work in an industry that is that is very Polar opposites, I think you can fairly say, you know and and it it To speak to my own masculinity. It is important to me that at the end of the day

I can go to a gym and I can be aggressive. I don't have to Worry about presenting Sort of overly masculine or quote-unquote bro, we. There's a space where there's other men, and many women too to be clear, but there's other men and we roll around and fight and train together and it feels safe. How does that square, not what you're talking specifically personally, but more broadly I suppose, or maybe your own experience as as well with the growing number of women who are part of this not just as fans but as fighters as well. I think I mean I think that it's a great thing and I think that it speaks to I think the

complicated nature of the UFC I mean they added women's championships relatively quickly into their existence. And like some of the biggest stars in the UFC have been women, Ronda Rousey, Amanda Nunez. I think it's incredible to see the space growing for women. Does it challenge that idea of masculinity that some people kind of push through the heart of the sport and through the heart of UFC in particular when you have more women who are involved in it? I'm not sure if it does because I think that white and company are quite careful to not always frame it around masculinity and more to frame it around sort of like a maverick mindset, like a counter-cultural, like, you know, we blaze

our, you know, we're blazing our own path, we're not following, you know, what quote unquote government wants us to do. And I'm not sure that it, that they walk a very, very careful line with that. Yeah. What about the role of someone like Joe Rogan in this? I mean, part of this is UFC ends up being described as part of what people call the Manosphere. And Rogan, as this insanely popular podcaster, has a role in kind of both of this, in UFC and in that world. Can you talk a little bit about that and his role as you see it? Well, Rogan is obviously the commentator for the UFC.

And I think, you know, the term Man-O-Sphere is difficult because it covers everybody from Theo Vaughn, who is a sort of loosely maybe counter-cultural comedian, to like Andrew Tate. That's a really, really, really wide net that I don't think encapsulates the sort of nuances of what's happening here. I think, you know, Brogan can dabble with really, really, really dangerous ideas. I do not deny that. But to young men who felt sort of, I think largely by COVID, sort of isolated by COVID, isolated by the experience of COVID, have found someone who is willing to listen to alternate ideas, who is not ashamed of their masculinity, and appeals, you know, I think in doing that is able to sort of launder some pretty dangerous ideologies and philosophies. It's not just Rogan. I mean, Jake Shields, who was an MMA fighter, now a podcaster, hosted the former Grand Wizard of the Clan.

Indeed. Yeah, absolutely. And I think in their sort of loose embrace of things that are quote unquote bro-y, like what ends up happening is much, much more dangerous ideas end up being, you know, platformed, largely because it doesn't really feel like there's a space for the kind of dialogue that exists in the Theo Von shows of the world and, you know, Andrew Schultz's show and in Rogan's show. It doesn't really feel like there's a space for that in sort of mainstream media, I think, largely. And, you know, that I think spirals into examples like Shields hosting the Klan. Peter Van Doren When you spoke with Dana White, what was your

sense as to what he believes when this kind of connection is made with his business. He's a very successful business person I just wonder whether is he concerned about this is he does he see that you know any controversy is good controversy in this good business Dana White fashions himself as a free speech absolutist. I think back to he will sort of likes to paint himself as someone who will let his fighters say and do anything as long as it's not illegal. And he's gotten in all sorts of trouble for that too. Indeed he has.

I mean I think just very recently Bryce Mitchell, a UFC fighter, went on a podcast and was talking about how Hitler pre-Holocaust was a good guy. And I think back to the example of former UFC champion Sean Strickland who went on a sort of anti-LGBT tirade on Mike in response to a question from a reporter. And what does Dana White do in the face of that? He just kind of gets on Mike and laughs and says, hey, First Amendment, free speech, I can't tell them what to think. I think like Trump, he is very, very, very good at just kind of staring controversy in

the face, the kind of thing that would have tanked a career 30, 40 years ago and just being like, whatever. He obviously had a scandal where he struck his wife at a nightclub, and I believe it was in Las Vegas, and got on the mic and said he was embarrassed and that he was going to change, but then, you know, was at UFC events weeks later. So I think like Trump, he's very, very, very good at shrugging off controversy. UFC is owned by the same parent company as WWE wrestling. Yes.

We spoke with some wrestling fans at a show in Toronto over the weekend. Have a listen to this. As a kid, my dad used to watch it and then my grandmother would secretly watch it. I think the variety and how progressive it is and the first gay wrestler I saw was before I'd ever been to Pride. The UFC obviously is more real. It's very, very right wing. And the first gay wrestler I saw was before I'd ever been to Pride. The UFC obviously is more real. It's very, very right wing.

I mean, you can't go to a UFC event with a shot of Trump in the audience. What impact do you think UFC's turn toward the right in politics has had on pro wrestling? I've never heard pro wrestling as being described as progressive in some ways, but that's interesting to hear fans talk about that. It is interesting, and I'm not sure exactly why the fan base for professional wrestling of it some ways, but that's interesting to hear fans talk about that. It is interesting and I'm not sure exactly why the fan base for professional wrestling ended up skewing more liberal than UFC, but yeah, I mean, I think part of it is the involvement of the McMahons, Linda and Vince McMahon, they've taken a step back in recent years.

I mean, Linda McMahon is not Donald Trump's secretary of education. Indeed, yeah. They're no longer as directly involved in the company. I think that the sort of content of the WWE has skewed towards a children's demographic since the mid-2000s. So they're less likely to attract and seek any sort of political controversy. They very explicitly don't really want to be countercultural. They're trying to sell their product to a child's audience.

And also, there's a much more robust, independent wrestling scene than there is an independent MMA scene. I mean, 95 cents on every dollar spent on MMA is spent with the UFC. So you can have sort of a large different range of, of, of political ideologies, uh, that you might find at a, at a wrestling event, um, compared, especially compared to UFC. I'm going to let you go, but just briefly, I mean, you wrote about this for the New Yorker, which as you said, is not perhaps the target audience for UFC,

but it's super interesting. What did you, what did you want people to understand about this that, that maybe they don't get? Well, you know, I think part of, part want people to understand is I think that it's still treated with this sort of curiosity as though this is a small thing often by mainstream media and this is an $11 billion company that many, many, many, many people are huge fans of it are consuming. And I think it's still reported on as frankly kind of trashy as something that is kind of,

I think, often beneath the eye of mainstream media. And it's, I think Donald Trump recognized that and was careful to cultivate a sort of populist image around that. You know, Donald Trump's the kind of guy that would go to a UFC show, wow, he's the man of the people. And I think that I both want people to understand why the UFC was important to his appeal and how that might be replicated. Obviously, Poliev, I think, is clearly trying to replicate it, why that might be replicated in other Western nations. Do you expect the sport to continue to grow and attract new fans?

I don't see how it could go anywhere. They have a complete stranglehold on essentially every dollar spent on the sport. I mean, that's why it's so immune to such political controversy. You know, where else, if you're an MMA fan at all, where else are you gonna turn? I'm really glad to talk to you about this. The piece that you wrote is really interesting,

but your own personal insight into this is fascinating as well. Sam, thank you very much. Thank you very much, Matt, I appreciate it. You've been listening to The Current Podcast. My name is Matt Galloway. Thanks for listening. I'll talk to you soon.

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