It’s not about what you know, it’s about who you know.
It certainly pays to have friends in high places. UFC boss, Dana White is a longtime friend and supporter of Trump, who also has long-standing ties with WWE so the TKO umbrella is within the favor of the current administration. With potential merger talks across the current media landscape as the industry continues to evolve through the advancement of technology, it helps to be on the good side of the federal agencies that can approve such transactions.
But, nepotism is nothing new, especially in politics. Who ends up with Warner Brothers properties, or what corporation will look to sell in the future if it can’t keep pace with the dynamics of the media business remains to be seen. Still, it never hurts to have that assurance in your back pocket. Right now, it looks like hefty GOP donor and CEO of Paramount, David Ellison will get control of the entire WBD corporation, a move that came after Netflix was outbid by a staggering $110 billion offer from Paramount, a 35% increase from the $82 billion agreement that Netflix had on the table. The Netflix deal would’ve taken the extensive libraries, the streaming platforms, and the movie studio. It would ensure more content for the global Netflix machine, while the TV networks would remain under the WBD banner as Discovery Global. This would essentially be the corporation’s renewed effort to focus specifically on television rather than attempting to compete across the board in the media business. If that would’ve been successful or reduced their footprint too much is moot, as the Paramount merger will see the company acquire Warner Brother Discovery entirely, including the CNN network. Make no mistake, the Paramount deal is the consolidation of media, not the acquisition of content for a different platform.
Similar to how millions of dollars of political donations bought Linda McMahon two different spots in Trump’s cabinet, Ellison more or less made sure that the WBD/Paramount merger will be approved through his political contributions.
Trump hosted a pair of Wrestlemania events at the now-defunct Trump Plaza in Atlantic City in the late-80s. He used the pro wrestling spectaculars to do the same thing that boxing was designed to do for the entertainment complex, bring travels to the hotel rooms and gamblers to the tables. It didn’t hurt that a few decades later that Trump was paid a reported $5 million that he “donated” to the Trump foundation, an organization that was later ordered by a court decision to dissolve due to misuse of funds, for the famous clash with Vince McMahon in 2007. As a result of this indirect payola, the justice department dropped an investigation into the hush money payments Vince with company funds just a few months after Trump took office for his second term.
Again, it pays to have friends in high places.
So, it makes sense that TKO, which is under the Endeavor banner, wants to keep the orange villain in the White House content, particularly when the Paramount merger gets approved, as it will give the UFC, the MMA league that signed a massive $7.7 billion rights deal with the organization, an even bigger platform when the Turner networks eventually fall under the Paramount umbrella.
One of the ways that the UFC is going to do that is to run a live card at the White House on Trump’s birthday. Last weekend, during the UFC 326 broadcast, the line-up was announced, with Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje for the Light Weight championship as the main event, while Alex Pereira, who vacated the 205 LBS title to move up to heavyweight, will square off with Ciryl Gane, to determine the interim champion until Tom Aspinall can recovery from a very serious eye injury that he suffered in a fight against Gane last October. Taking into account that Aspinall noted that multiple surgeries would be needed to repair the injury and no indication of if or when he will be cleared to fight again, it’s possible that the winner of the Pereira/Gane bout could eventually be deemed the undisputed heavyweight champion.
As with anything, there’s a domino effect when decisions like the Trump birthday event are made, including an effect on Paramount, the network that signed the UFC to the $7.7 billion contract mentioned earlier.
The organization had a slew of situations where titles were vacated in different divisions, prompting the narrative around those divisions to get very murky. It’s difficult to make stars when there isn’t truly the coronation of a new champion. Islam Makhachev vacated the light weight title so that he could move up to welterweight and was given a title shot for his first fight in the division when he beat Jack Della Maddalena for the championship this past November. As mentioned, Pereira vacated the light heavyweight belt to move up to fight Gane, who initially fought Aspinall because Jon Jones vacated the heavyweight championship without ever defending it. Topuria/Gaethje is the slug fest to provide the fireworks for the main event, while the heavyweight title showdown will bring a level of gravitas to the event.
With so many moving parts in different divisions, Dana White was going to put the best card that he could in place for his friend’s birthday. The issue with that, at least from a macro point of view, is given the preparation needed to train and the potential recovery time for any injuries during fights, the majority of the UFC in terms of star power, is based around the White House card, leaving the rest of the calendar rather sparse. Former Bantamweight champion, Sean O’Malley, and Michael Chandler, both diehard Trump supporters, are scheduled to fight on the under card at the White House. Dana couldn’t get Jon Jones on the White House card, which became the subject of controversy when the UFC president claimed during the UFC 326 post-fight press conference that “Bones” Jones wasn’t in consideration for the event and went as far as to claim that the former champion is retired. Jones rebutted that on Twitter, claiming that there were negotiations for him to compete in June. Regardless of the actual story, the bottom line is, Jon Jones isn’t fighting at the White House. On the flip side, Dana also said that Conor McGregor, who was the subject of a lawsuit and legal trouble in his native country the past few years, could be back to fight at some point in the future. The brash Irishman hasn’t fought in almost five years after he suffered a gruesome injury, snapping his leg in a bout against Dustin Poirier in July of 2021.
I’d say it’s 50/50 if we see McGregor back in the octagon again, but without him or Jones on the roster, Dana had to piece together a card for his friend’s birthday with the best remaining competitors under contract. That will yield a stacked event for Trump, but as I said, the rest of the announced calendar through August doesn’t offer much substance or sizzle in terms of anticipation for the fan base. Part of the problem is the abundance of live cards that the company still runs under the Paramount contract, which was also an issue during the ESPN deal. There are simply too many cards that require too many competitors for a main event guy to be available to fight when needed the way that there was years ago.
The sum total of putting as many resources as they are into the White House presentation is that it doesn’t help the selling point for Paramount subscriptions or maintain a hype around the brand to maintain subscriptions. Furthermore, and this is a much smaller point since the American public’s political allegiance usually only goes as far as when it inconveniences them, it’s possible that such a strong association with Trump could sour a portion of the fan base. But, sacrificing the majority of the calendar for a year of a billion dollar contract or a minimal demographic of the audience is still moot in the grand scheme of things. For Paramount, they get to broadcast Trump’s birthday event around the same time that they will need government approval for the WBD merger, and we’ve already seen why it’s beneficial for the TKO corporation to be in the favor of the current administration.
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Until next week
-Jim LaMotta
Email [email protected] | You can follow me on Instagram, Facebook, & Threads @jimlamotta89
