UFC White House event gets major walkout update: “Not everybody is walking from the Oval Office”
Craig Borsari has now added a key detail to one of the most talked-about parts of the UFC White House event: despite Dana White’s earlier Oval Office tease, the UFC’s chief content officer says that privilege will not extend to every fighter on the card.
Dana White previously said fighters would walk from the Oval Office, but Borsari explained in a new interview that the promotion is reserving that entrance for select moments while planning other White House-based walkouts for the rest of the lineup.
UFC White House card will reserve Oval Office walkout for select fighters
Speaking with Jake Arier on Against the Cage, Borsari addressed the question directly when asked which fighters would make the Oval Office walk. He said:
“I will say not everybody is walking from the Oval Office. That’s a pretty special location to start a fighter walk. You can imagine who, you know, where what we’re saving that for.”
Borsari added that the rest of the card still will not get standard arena-style walkouts. He said fighters will emerge from other parts of the White House complex, which the UFC production team sees as a major visual element for the broadcast.
“There are other locations within the White House that the fighters will emanate from. They are incredibly compelling and cool spaces for our production team to figure out ways to capture the images of the fighters coming out of different areas of the White House.
“They are incredibly compelling and cool spaces for our production team to figure out ways to capture the images of the fighters coming out of different areas of the White House. There’s a lot of really interesting and fun executions for the fighter walks that you’ll see.”
That clarification matters because Dana White had previously described the event in sweeping terms. In comments carried by several outlets in March, White said, “The fighters are going to walk out of the Oval Office” and, “They’re walking from the Oval Office,” which created the impression that the entire card might use the same entrance. Borsari’s comments sharpen that picture and suggest the UFC is treating the Oval Office as a featured presentation point rather than a universal staging area.
UFC Freedom 250 Planning
“For the better part of the last year have been working on this project on a daily basis. Six to eight months out has been virtually all I’ve been working on. The magnitude of this event, the logistics, the things that we just never anticipated leading up to it, are all things that take a tremendous amount of planning, coordination, and communication with the broader team.”
The interview also gave a better sense of how much work has gone into the June 14 event on the South Lawn. Borsari said he has been working on the project daily for “the better part of the last year,” and that for the past six to eight months it has been “virtually all” he has worked on. ESPN previously reported that White said Borsari had already met with White House operations staff “10 times now” as the UFC mapped out the logistics.
Weather Issues
Borsari outlined some of the main production issues as well. He said the UFC has built detailed contingency plans for rain, lightning, and high winds, with two weather services providing hourly reports so the company can adjust if needed. He also revealed that the South Lawn slopes around 22 feet from north to south, which forced the UFC to solve a major engineering problem before it could even begin building the event footprint.
“We have a team that handles all of the contingency planning for inclement weather, whether it be high winds, lightning, andor rain or a combination of all of them. We’re prepared to implement contingency planning based on the scenario that’s presented to us. With the two weather services that we have on board, they’ll be giving us hourly weather reports. If there’s any significant weather patterns forming, we should know that with enough advanced notice to make a change or a pivot in the start time of the event.”
That fits with what White has said elsewhere about the scale of the undertaking. In January, reports on White’s remarks said the White House card would cost more than the UFC’s Sphere event and had become the biggest logistical challenge the company has faced, with Borsari’s team using 3D renderings, sunlight tracking, and weather mapping to prepare the build and broadcast plan.
“We do have what we’re calling the claw structure. On top of that we do have a branded tarp that is custom fitted to the overhead structure. That is watertight and would prevent I would say light to maybe moderate rain from getting on the octagon or any of the spectators on the floor. We’ll have to determine what level of precipitation actually makes its way to the fighting surface to see if we can continue to operate the event.”
Borsari also said the UFC wants the telecast to frame the White House clearly behind the Octagon and present the night in a patriotic way tied to the 250th anniversary celebration of American independence. With that in mind, his latest comments point to a production plan built around selective pageantry: a few fighters get the Oval Office, others get different White House staging points, and the UFC tries to turn each walkout into part of the show’s identity.
The UFC’s June 14 White House show, branded UFC Freedom 250, now has an official lineup headed by Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje for the lightweight title and Alex Pereira vs. Ciryl Gane for the interim heavyweight title, with Sean O’Malley vs. Aiemann Zahabi, Mauricio Ruffy vs. Michael Chandler, Bo Nickal vs. Kyle Daukaus, and Diego Lopes vs. Steve Garcia also announced for the card. After UFC 327, the booking of Josh Hokit against Derrick Lewis, which would take the event from the originally announced six fights to seven. The event is set for the South Lawn of the White House and will stream live on Paramount+, with the official bout list first posted by the UFC in March.
