For the UFC, bigotry is the main event

Some of the UFC’s top stars harbour xenophobic and sexist views. Instead of distancing itself from bigots, the organization uses them to sell fights.

Jan 22, 2024

Sean Strickland pictured during the UFC 297 media event in January 2024

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When Sean Strickland arrived at the UFC 297 pre-fight media event in Toronto last week clad in a T-shirt that read: “A woman in every kitchen, a gun in every hand,” it should have been abundantly clear what type of circus the UFC was bringing to town.

For years, Strickland—a self-professed former neo-Nazi—has fashioned himself as the organization’s far-right, xenophobic and chauvinistic fighter. Ahead of his previous fight at UFC 293 in Sydney, he made a series of sexist comments and bragged about punching a fan in the stomach, which government officials in New South Wales later condemned after facing pressure to defend spending $16m to bring the controversial sport to the state. He has also made a slew of racist comments and once tweeted that ‘if I had a gay son I would think I failed as a man to create such weakness…”

The latter statement would come back to haunt Strickland when journalist Alexander K. Lee questioned the UFC champ about the tweet and his overt anti-LGBTQ+ views. Strickland responded by launching into an homophobic tirade while singling Lee out as the “definition of weakness.”

“You’re part of the fucking problem,” Strickland said. “You elected Justin Trudeau, and he seized the bank accounts. You’re just fucking pathetic. And the fact that you have no fucking backbone, and have him shut down your country and seize fucking bank accounts, and you ask me some stupid shit like that? Go fuck yourself.”

Lee, who managed to remain composed despite Strickland’s attack, followed up with a question about Bud Light, a UFC sponsor that the fighter had previously criticized for supporting a trans influencer. Strickland doubled down with an unhinged transphobic rant.

“Here’s the thing about Bud Light,” Strickland said. “Ten years ago, to be trans was a mental fucking illness. And all of a sudden, people like you have fucking weaselled your way in the world. You are an infection. You are the definition of weakness. Everything that is wrong with the world is because of fucking you. And the best thing is, the world’s not buying it. The world’s not buying your fucking bullshit that you’re fucking peddling. The world is not saying, ‘you know what, you’re right, chicks have dicks.’ The world’s not saying that. The world’s saying, ‘there are two genders, I don’t want my kids being taught about who they can fuck in school, I don’t want my kids being taught about their sexual preference.’ Like, this guy [pointing to Lee] is a fucking enemy. You want to look at the enemy to our world? It’s that motherfucker right there. Asking me stupid fucking questions.”

Strickland’s deranged statements about a marginalized community made headlines—almost all of which were negative—but did not lead to any consequences from the UFC or its media partner ESPN. UFC President Dana White later claimed that Strickland was “baited” into an exchange with Lee and that he has no intention to “control what people say.”

Of course, this is a typical response from the UFC—an organization where bigotry is a feature, not a bug.

Strickland would go on to lose his UFC middleweight title in a split decision loss to South Africa’s Dricus Du Plessis on Saturday night—a result that appears to be karmic justice. However, Du Plessis, a white Afrikaners, has also made some racially charged statements disregarding the African lineage of several Black UFC fighters, including former champs Kamaru Usman and Israel Adesanya, both of whom were born in Nigeria.

“Did those belts ever go to Africa?” Du Plessis asked reporters at UFC 285 media day. “As far as I know, they came to America and New Zealand. I’m going to take a belt to Africa. I’m the African fighter in the UFC.”

When a reporter then asked White about the potential “racial undertones” of Du Plessis’ words, the UFC president shut down the question, adding “who gives a shit, this is the fight business.”

The problem is that the UFC did give a shit once upon a time. The organization even had an official “Athlete Conduct Policy,” which deemed that UFC fighters “shall conduct themselves in accordance with commonly accepted standards of decency, social conventions and morals, and will not commit any act or become involved in any situation or occurrence or make any statement which will reflect negatively upon or bring disrepute, contempt, scandal, ridicule, or disdain to the athlete or UFC.” The UFC utilized this policy in 2013 when it suspended Nate Diaz for using a homophobic slur in a social media post.

Now, however, the policy is not worth the paper it is written on. Much of this is due to the organization’s hands-off approach to hateful conduct—a strategy motivated by the UFC’s determination to present itself as an alternative for conservative audiences dissatisfied with the rise of social justice narratives in leagues such as the NFL and NBA.

Former U.S. President Donald Trump posing alongside UFC President Dana White, former champions Justin Gaethje, Henry Cejudo, and Colby Covington, and MMA manager Ali Abdelaziz following a 2020 campaign even in Las Vegas.

Over the past few years, UFC has become synonymous with rightwing politics due to its well-documented relationship with former president Donald Trump. As I have previously reported for outlets such as The Guardian, the organization effectively became the sports arm of the MAGA regime and was an ideal platform for Trump to espouse his political agenda.

White is among Trump’s most boisterous supporters, having campaigned for the former president as far back as 2016. White has defended Trump’s policies, produced a documentary on him called Combatant-in-Chief, and regularly hosted Trump as a guest-of-honor at UFC events. Countless other fighters, including a handful of former champions, have also campaigned for Trump.

Among Trump’s biggest supporters in the UFC is Colby Covington, a fighter who repels charisma but who rose to prominence as the personification of Trump’s MAGA politics. Covington regularly donned the infamous red hat and parroted Trump quotes during press appearances. For example, he called Tyron Woodley—a Black American fighter—a terrorist for supporting the Black Lives Matter movement ahead of their fight in 2020.

Covington, who headlined UFC 296 last month with Trump in attendance, has also made racist comments in the past. He once asked Usman, a Nigerian-American fighter, if he had gotten “smoke signals” from his “tribe”. When White was asked about the exchange, the UFC president downplayed the statements and claimed they were not racist.

In October 2021, Israel’s Oron Kahlon called his Afghan opponent a “terrorist” in the presence of UFFC matchmaker Sean Shelby during the ceremonial face-off ahead of their Contender Series bout. When asked whether Kahlon’s comments went too far, White seemed to suggest that bigotry was a reasonable form of trash talk.

“If you look, you can add that to the pile of some pretty nasty things that have been said in this sport. And not just this sport – boxing, I’m sure Muay Thai, kickboxing, you name it. Mean things are said,” White told reporters following the event.

“In this insanely politically correct world that we’re living in, this is one place that is not.”

At UFC 293 last September, a pair of UFC athletes used anti-gay slurs during their post-fight interviews. In both instances, their interviews were cut short. However, White later insisted that he had no intention to make the fighters apologize for their actions.

These examples are not selective. There are plenty of other examples, including among the UFC’s biggest names. Ahead of the UFC 229 showdown between Conor McGregor and Khabib Nurmagomedov—arguably the biggest fight in UFC history—the Irishman utilized Islamophobia to help sell the fight. He called his Muslim opponent a “backwards cunt” when he refused to accept a glass of McGregor’s branded whiskey and posted social media posts with phrase such as “chilling in Jahannam” (Arabic for hell).

McGregor, who remains the UFC’s biggest star, has only gotten worse over time. The former two-division champion is currently being investigated by Irish police for online hate speech for his role in stoking anti-migrant hate ahead of the Dublin riots last year.