A hulking metal arena is rising on the White House’s South Lawn as US president Donald Trump pursues a spate of construction projects, and is set to host a night of mixed martial arts fighting to mark the 250th anniversary of US independence.
The arena is being assembled on a stretch of the grounds used for presidents’ Marine One helicopter departures and annual Easter egg rolls and picnics, alongside tennis and basketball courts, a horseshoe pit and a garden honouring presidents’ children and grandchildren.
UFC, the professional mixed martial arts league run by Trump ally Dana White, will stage a night of bouts at the US executive mansion on June 14th as part of the country’s independence celebrations. The event will coincide with Trump’s 80th birthday.
Four pieces of giant metal scaffolding now rise in front of the White House, looming over the Truman Balcony, a columned terrace overlooking the South Lawn. Video screens will be suspended from them.
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“The octagon,” the eight-sided metal cage in which combatants fight, will sit inside, ringed with a chain-link fence. White dubbed the arena “The Claw” in an interview with the New Yorker magazine.
More than 4,000 spectators will watch the fight in the arena, Trump and White have said, with many tickets going to military personnel. Officials are also planning viewing areas on the Ellipse, a 21-hectare park south of the White House, with aims to accommodate an additional 100,000 people. Weigh-ins will be held at the Lincoln Memorial.
Trump, who plans to watch the bouts ringside, was an early backer of UFC when White took over the professional circuit in 2001. Trump allowed White to use his casino properties to host events when the fights were largely unregulated and, in some quarters, seen as seedy and unethical.
The late Arizona Republican senator John McCain, a US war hero and amateur boxer, derided the contests as “human cockfighting”.
His opposition, amplified by his influence in Congress, pushed UFC to seek state regulatory approval and build broader legitimacy in the early 2000s. In August 2025, it signed a $7.7 billion (€6.6 billion) media rights deal with Paramount.
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The White House complex is already home to another big construction project: Trump’s $400 million state ballroom, which opponents have criticised as a vanity project but which the president says is needed for national security.
The arena and the new ballroom are just two of the projects Trump has launched since returning to the White House in January 2025.
He has also ordered the renovation of Lafayette Square, a public park on the north side of the White House, and repainting the Reflecting Pool between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument. He is also planning to build what he calls Independence Arch, reminiscent of the Arc de Triomphe in Paris, except much bigger. – Reuters
