By Trevor Hunnicutt and Jacob Bogage
WASHINGTON, June 14 (Reuters) - Donald Trump hosts a card of seven mixed martial arts fights to be held on Sunday inside a specially built arena on the White House's South Lawn on his 80th birthday, a spectacle spotlighting his norm-defying style at a tense moment in his presidency.
Seventeen months into his second term in office, Trump has repeatedly pushed the boundaries of the U.S. presidency to command attention and project strength. His latest stage is the Ultimate
Fighting Championship's Octagon, the eight-sided cage erected within eyeshot of his White House bedroom for the event titled "UFC Freedom 250." That is a reference to the 250th anniversary of the nation's founding next month.
The event comes as Trump grapples with the four-month-old Iran war that has pushed consumer prices to a three-year high and, as shown in public opinion polls, unnerved many voters. It also coincides with his birthday and his efforts to counter perceptions that he is becoming a lame duck president.
A RESPITE FROM WAR
Trump is set to watch 14 mixed martial arts fighters from five countries try to kick, punch and grapple their way to a victory before an expected audience of 4,000 people inside a 92-foot-tall (28 meters) makeshift venue, nicknamed "The Claw." The main event, scheduled for up to five rounds, features UFC lightweight champion Ilia Topuria against former interim titleholder Justin Gaethje. The fights are set to begin at 8 p.m. (0000 GMT Monday).
Tickets were not sold publicly. UFC offered some to guests paying more than $1 million, according to a person familiar with the matter. A quarter of the audience will be military service members, according to the Trump administration.
Trump asserted broad executive authority to stage a private company's event on federal grounds, a break with norms that drew a legal challenge and raised concerns about the cost of the event and the potential for ethical conflicts. The UFC's parent company is publicly traded TKO Group Holdings.
In a Reuters/Ipsos online poll of 4,531 U.S. adults conducted June 3-8, just 16% said it was appropriate for Trump to hold the event. A judge declined on Friday to block the event in a legal challenge by plaintiffs who had argued that his administration exceeded its authority in staging it by, among other things, failing to get congressional authorization.
Trump has long been close with UFC Chief Executive Dana White and the Ellison family, whose Paramount has a $7.7 billion deal to air UFC fights until 2033.
White has used the sport's popularity, particularly with younger men, to support Trump's campaigns dating back to his first run for the presidency in 2016.
UFC has said it spent more than $60 million on the event and will not make a profit.
In the run-up, Trump's trust purchased stock in TKO Group Holdings while a company that licenses the president's likeness marketed commemorative coins for as much as $12,000. One of the event's sponsors, Crypto.com, previously partnered with Trump Media & Technology Group.
The White House has denied that any conflict of interest exists and said the Trump family manages the president's business affairs.
"The vast majority of Americans are not celebrating 250 years of America by watching a UFC fight," said Dan Rayburn, an independent streaming analyst. "This is really a private event."
SPECTATOR-IN-CHIEF
Trump has made sports a recurring feature of his presidency, weighing in on issues including transgender athletes and pay for college football players, and has attended a range of major sporting events.
France delayed the Group of Seven summit, which starts on Monday, to accommodate Trump's attendance at the UFC event.
About a fifth of Americans call themselves MMA fans. According to the findings of the Reuters/Ipsos poll, they do not have a particularly high opinion overall of Trump's job performance, with 45% approving and 55% disapproving. That exceeds his 35% approval rating among all Americans but is well below his 79% approval rating among Republicans.
MMA fans skew male and tend to identify as more politically independent, with nearly half of those polled saying they do not identify with either party. About a third identified as Republicans and one in five as Democrats.
The arena will provide an intimate setting for the bouts. Some fighters are expected to begin their walkout to the Octagon from the Oval Office and then pass through the Rose Garden or the West Wing colonnade. The arena is 20 rows deep on all sides. Noise from the sound system caroms off the facade of the White House's Truman Balcony, shaking the executive mansion's walls.
Tens of thousands of people will be able to watch the fights on a big screen from a nearby park. Daytime temperatures exceeding 90 degrees Fahrenheit (32 degrees Celsius) are expected to cool by the evening, but the U.S. National Weather Service forecasts rain and thunderstorms. The arena was not built with a roof.
(Reporting by Trevor Hunnicutt and Jacob Bogage in Washington; Additional reporting by Jason Lange; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Will Dunham)
