The White House is preparing the UFC arena for Sunday's bloody brawl on the South Lawn, and it's looking a hell of a lot like a laser light show.
The arena was "all lit up" on Tuesday night, according to a post shared on X by journalist Aaron Rupar, as crews make arrangements for UFC's "Freedom 250" fight card. While just a few lights were on inside the White House, the open-air arena behind it resembled a glowing orb in comparison.
Rupar's clip shows rows of strobe lights, some shaped like stars as patriotic imagery for America's 250th birthday, beaming from the structure and landing around and onto the nearby executive mansion.
The 'Claw' Structure
UFC's octagon arena is set to be housed inside the 600-ton, 92-foot-tall and 154-foot-wide structure that's been deemed the "claw," an apparatus built in Europe that gives off an "arcade crane game" appearance, ESPN reported last week. The look of the final structure was the result of UFC boss Dana White insisting that the "entire White House" be visible during the event, leading to an apparatus that is 22 feet taller than the executive mansion itself, per ESPN.
The structure is expected to be taken down following the fight night on Sunday, which is also President Donald Trump's birthday, and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean before it's reassembled for the Lorde, Sombr and Tyler, The Creator-headlined summer music festival Lowlands in the Netherlands.
Online Criticism
Critics on X made a mockery of the arena's appearance. Progressive YouTuber Jack Cocchiarella wrote that it "looks like shit." Another reacted by declaring that "Idiocracy was a documentary," a nod to the rundown, trash-filled White House lawn as seen in the 2006 Mike Judge movie.
Other comments included: "it's like a scene from a c-tier 90s movie about an 8-year-old who gets to control an evil president's decisions 20% of the time," and "They've elected a new podcaster to lead them." One user quipped, "Just as the founders intended," while another said, "We had a good run but it's over." Some compared the White House to Las Vegas and a traveling haunted house.
Andy Ostroy noted, "Can we stop for a second to just acknowledge that there's a UFC Arena outside the Vegas-whorehouse gold-plated-interior White House, on the destroyed South Lawn, near where the paved over Rose Garden used to be, next to the rubble of a demolished East Wing."
