The UFC may be pivoting on their headliner plans for the UFC White House card, which was looking like it would feature Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje to unify the lightweight title.
According to Team Topuria insider Alvaro Colmenero, there are concerns that the fight may not be ‘American’ enough … or a little too ‘Hispanic’ for an event celebrating the 250th birthday of the United States.
“At this point, I can tell you – and this is information I’ve been given – that there’s no definitive confirmation
that Topuria will be at the White House,” Colmenero reported in a new video. “It would be ideal, but there’s also a truth to this: we should never lose sight of the significance of the White House event.”
“The White House is being used to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States’ independence, which should be on July 4th, but they moved it to June 14th to coincide with Donald Trump’s 80th birthday. The White House has to be full of American flags.”
“I don’t know to what extent Trump’s advisors will approve, when the whole fight card is presented and explained to Trump, of putting a fighter who is Spanish-Georgian — that is, Hispanic — in the main event, where there’s a very high probability he’ll knock out the American star.” Colmenero continued. “And yes, Justin Gaethje has a chance of winning. But this is a matter of probabilities, this is also a matter of advice and of working as positively as possible for American interests.”
Colmenero added that International Fight Week in July was being considered as a back-up should the UFC decide to shift the fight back to a new date.
UFC CEO Dana White has said he wasn’t planning on stacking the card with American fighters to fit some American theme. But when it comes to the big match-ups we have no doubt there must be some consideration to what the Trump administration wants.
Last month it would be crazy to suggest Topuria would be passed on as a headliner because he’s ‘Hispanic.’ Then the Super Bowl happened, and you realize just how polarized things are right now.
