WASHINGTON: Yet another White House construction project is underway, though this one is meant to be only temporary.
Crews are erecting an octagon-shaped cage on the South Lawn that will host next month’s Ultimate Fighting Championship mixed martial arts bout, helping mark the United States’ 250th anniversary – and President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.
Online renderings depict what the completed, wire-mesh-fence-ringed fight space is expected to look like ahead of the Jun 14 event. It will be ringed by a red, white and blue stage under a towering arch featuring stars and stripes patterns and two large screens carrying the action live.
The cage and stage will themselves be surrounded by thousands of temporary seats, including ringside space for a full marching band that can set the entire scene to blaring music.
The fight, called UFC Freedom 250, is part of a series of events celebrating the semiquincentennial of the Declaration of Independence’s signing on Jul 4, 1776. Other planned functions include an IndyCar race that will pass by the White House and the Great American State Fair taking place on the National Mall.
Trump has said that the finished UFC project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House”. Additional large screens broadcasting the fights will be set up in a park at the nearby Ellipse, and the UFC has said it plans to issue as many as 85,000 free tickets to accommodate spectators at both locations.
“I have never seen anybody want anything so much as people want those tickets,” Trump said recently of demand to attend the UFC fight, adding: “That’s gonna be something.”
The card has been panned by fans online as underwhelming, featuring just two championship fights.
Brazil’s Alex Pereira will meet France’s Ciryl Gane for the interim UFC heavyweight title. Then Spanish-Georgian lightweight champion Ilia Topuria takes on interim champ Justin Gaethje, one of just two Americans who currently hold even a share of the UFC’s 11 championship belts.
The octagon and surrounding structures are the latest project in the White House building boom Trump is leading.
The president’s other efforts to leave his mark include tearing up part of the Rose Garden to make room for a patio space reminiscent of his Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, affixing partisan plaques to the wall of the colonnade for a Presidential Walk of Fame, redoing the bathroom attached to the Lincoln Bedroom and renovating the Palm Room, placing new flag poles on the north and south lawns, and demolishing the entire East Wing for a sprawling ballroom.
The president also wants to repaint the Eisenhower Executive Office Building beside the White House and build a 76m arch at the nearby Lincoln Memorial — the same monument where weigh-ins for the upcoming UFC fight are scheduled to take place, bout organisers say.