After nearly a year of talk, the UFC White House event is set to go down this Sunday, June 14th. Everything is in place: the stands, the massive ‘Claw’ structure that will light things up, and the cage. And on Wednesday afternoon, press were allowed to enter the temporary arena for the UFC Freedom 250 fights and film.
The setup did not disappoint.
We’ve seen a lot of pictures of ‘The Claw’ as it was being built on the South Lawn, but nothing prepared us for how gigantic the structure looks when you’re
underneath it. All those fears of rain seem silly considering how giant the covered roof is. It would take a real storm for rain to swirl its way into the cage.
Massive UFC Freedom 250 plaques adorn the entryway into the seating area. There’s a dedicated area for what we are guessing will be an oldschool orchestra band. Massive screens are attached to every leg on ‘The Claw.’ And it’s all flanking the White House, as Dana White demanded when cooking up his vision for the event.
We’ve seen far-away footage of the structure lit up as the UFC production team calibrates the lights and gets the programming down for Sunday. It will be interesting to see what they cook up for the 4,000 people sitting cageside live for the event, more than half of which are expected to be U.S. military members. The UFC didn’t disappoint when they went to The Sphere, and we can’t imagine they’ll just run a few lame gyro lights for this White House event. We’re prepared to have our socks blown off.
The UFC White House event is scheduled to kick off at 8 p.m. ET and can only be watched on Paramount+ … there will be no CBS simulcast, even for earlier fights. So get your Paramount+ account sorted, because you’re not gonna want to miss this.
