The UFC once championed Democrats. What happened?
Once a vocal supporter of Democratic candidates, the UFC has now aligned itself with the MAGA movement. What caused this transformation?
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In Oct. 2010, then-Vice President Joe Biden visited the University of Nevada, Reno campus in a campaign-sponsored rally in support of the candidacy of U.S. Sen. Harry Reid. In an attempt to persuade young people to vote in the midterm elections, Biden enlisted the help of UFC President Dana White and former champion Chuck Liddell.
The event began with a rally on campus, where tickets and seating was distributed by the Young Democrats. White arrived on stage, flanked by Liddell, and gave an impassioned speech about the importance of voting.
“Many of you know I am not a political person or a politically correct person,” White said. “But I came here today to tell you guys how important it is to go out and vote. We’re blessed in this country that we have the right to actually go out and pick who gets put into office and who represents us.”
White spent the rest of the day meeting with university students and convincing them to go out and vote. At one point, the UFC President was surrounded by a group of UFC fans and discussed the upcoming fight between Brock Lesnar and Cain Velasquez at UFC 121. One student even held up a sign that read “Iceman 4 VP 2012.”
White even described his experience meeting Biden as “cool.”
“He was a very nice guy. He was fun to hang out with and I had a good time. I was honored.”
This was far from the only time that the UFC partnered with Democrats. In June 2010, Sen. Reid’s campaign hosted a contest to sit with the senator and White at a UFC show at the MGM Grand in Las Vegas. White wrote on Reid’s website at the time that it was not only “an awesome opportunity to show (Reid) how the sport has grown” but also “a great look at two of the biggest and best strikers in the sport, and an undercard that won’t disappoint.”
Several notable UFC fighters also showed their support for the Democratic senator. This included registered Republicans Randy Couture and Frank Mir, the latter of whom did several TV and radio spots promoting Reid.
“I’m known as a tough guy. But for the past 23 years, the true fighter for the state of Nevada has been our senator Harry Reid,” Mir said. “Our future generation needs a leader with power in Washington—and I know a little bit about power. On November 2nd, it’s up to us to keep Harry in the ring to keep doing what he does best: fighting for Nevada.” Mir then added, “I’m not being paid for this ad, I’m doing this because I care about Nevada’s future and the future of our children.”
It is worth noting that Reid himself is a former middleweight boxer. In his autobiography, The Good Fight: Hard Lessons from Searchlight to Washington, he wrote:
“A manager named Spike Bybe found me, and over the next two years, I had fifteen or twenty fights, mostly in Utah—Hurricane, Kanab, Beaver, Price, Cedar City, maybe St. George—but I also fought in Las Vegas. I’d go anywhere and fight anybody. I had boxing shoes. I was a full-fledged fighter…The black eyes and soreness to me were badges of honor to wear the next day, and I’d fight every chance I got.”
The UFC’s partnership with Reid came at a time when the organization was campaigning to legalize MMA across the United States. It sough political clout as it advocated for further regulation. Reid, who served as the Senate Majority Leader and led the Senate Democratic Caucus at the time, was a perfect, if unlikely, ally for the cagefighting organization. He even urged New York state lawmakers to proceed with legalizing the sport after attending his first UFC event in July 2010.
However, much has changed in the last 14 years.
After years of appealing to Democratic politicians to further their regulatory agenda, the UFC pivoted to the right when Donald Trump announced his candidacy in 2016. White spoke at the Republican National Convention in 2016, returning to endorse Trump again in 2020 and 2024. Countless UFC fighters joined Trump on the campaign trail, including a “Fighters Against Socialism” bus tour during the 2020 campaign.
So how exactly did the UFC emerge as Trump’s sporting arm? Was it about business-minded pragmatism or part of a broader cultural shift in the US?
This is what Sports Politika’s ongoing series, In The Red Corner, attempts to answer. In this three-part series, we explore the UFC's deepening ties with Donald Trump, tracing how it evolved into a MAGA platform for sports fans and examining the mutual benefits this alliance has brought to both the UFC and Trump.
The entire series is available below:
In The Red Corner was created by Karim Zidan and Elie Bleier and is available on all major podcast platforms, including Apple Podcast, and Spotify. You can also listen using the embed above or through the Substack app.
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