The UFC is hard at work sorting out the details of June’s big White House card, and according to Dana White the lineup for the event is ‘built.’
That’s the specific word he used after walking back another more satisfying word: ‘done.’ The UFC CEO initially used that word during the Zuffa Boxing 03 post-event press conference to describe the status of the card before correcting himself.
“We have two different options laid out, the matchmaking process has already started,” White said. “So yeah, we got the White House card done last week.”
“The card is done already?” Mac Life reporter Oscar Willis asked.
“Yeah,” White replied before refusing to elaborate. “I’m not saying anything.”
A bit later in the press conference, White walked that back a bit.
“So we laid out two different options,” he said again. “I didn’t say it was done, I said the card was built.”
What it sounds like to us is that Dana White and the matchmakers have laid out all the fights they want for the card including two different options for top-of-the-card match-ups. Now they’re in the process of actually signing all the various fighters to bout agreements.
That doesn’t really tell us too much, but now we can start taking fighters seriously when they claim they’ve been in talks with the UFC about fighting at the White House. Every fighter in the UFC and several outside of it have been trying to get on this card, and thus far we’ve seen a number of them fib or outright lie about the status of their participation.
Will Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje headline the event? Will Conor McGregor be on the card? Will a rumored Alex Pereira vs. Ciryl Gane heavyweight interim match be made? Can Kayla Harrison recover quickly enough from neck surgery to face Amanda Nunes in June? Will Trump favorites Jorge Masvidal, Colby Covington, or Derrick Lewis be booked?
So many questions, and to all of it White declared “I’m not talking about the White House card.”
Not at the moment, anyway. But soon?
“We don’t know yet [how we’ll announce it],” he said. “As we get closer, we’ve been kicking around a lot of ideas. Me and [chief content officer Craig] Borsari are flying to DC this week to sit down with the president and see him and start walking them through not just the production but the fight card. We have like three different options on all the different production stuff. We’ll see what he likes and what he doesn’t like.”
“But let me tell you this: this event is going to be so badass and so unique and so special. And so expensive.”
