While the MMA community pitches potential fights for the US president’s planned event at the White House, one UFC employee is concerned about logistics.
Recently, Donald Trump announced a UFC fight to take place on the White House lawn as part of next year’s July 4 celebrations.
The plan quickly drew widespread reactions and attention, including from a number of notable UFC fighters who want in on celebrating the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with Octagon action.
Conor McGregor wants to make his comeback at the White House, while the Irishman’s fellow former champion Jon Jones has teased a return from retirement for the occasion.
But Daniel Cormier thinks everybody might be getting ahead of themselves.
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Daniel Cormier isn’t sure the UFC White House event is ‘worth the squeeze’
During a recent episode of his Good Guy/Bad Guy show on ESPN MMA’s YouTube channel, Cormier reacted to Trump’s plan to have UFC action take place outside one of the world’s most famous buildings.
‘DC’ revealed the extra steps UFC staff have to go through before pay-per-view events that the president attends, questioning if it would be possible to replicate for over 20,000 people outside the White House.
“When he said, ‘We’re gonna do a UFC event at the White House,’ I was like, ‘Oh my god, that’s exciting.’ Then I started to think…
“For him to just come to a fight, all the hoops that we go through as people that work for the company (UFC), right? The Secret Service is in the arena the day before. We all have to do so many other things — background checks and all these things — because the president’s going to be there.
“Imagine trying to put 25,000 at the White House. They’re gonna go through all those steps for all those people?” Cormier added. “I think we as a country can do whatever we want…(but) I don’t know that the effort it will take to make that happen is going to be worth the squeeze.
“And it’s gonna be outside? In July? It gets hot in Washington in July!”
Daniel Cormier backs Jon Jones for UFC White House main event
Should the event go ahead, Cormier unsurprisingly wants to see an American have their hand raised at the national celebration.
And when it comes to selecting the best “bad American” to get the job done for his country, ‘DC’ would look to his longtime arch-rival.
“(It needs) a bad, bad American that’s gonna win,” Cormier said during the same video. “It pains me to say, if we’ve gotta send one bad American out there to get the job done…call Jon Jones.
“I would cheer so hard for him! I would cheer so hard for him on the White House. I know you guys always say I’m hard on Jones, if we’ve gotta send one American fighter out to the White House to get a dub, man, send Jon Jones out there.
“I’ll call him to ask him,” Cormier added. “I love Colby (Covington), I love Michael (Chandler)…if we’ve gotta do one American dude, man, you better go put Jon Jones out there to go get us a dub as a country.”
Given their heated history, that perhaps sits as the only scenario Cormier would support Jones in.