The UFC’s big event at White House, called UFC Freedom 250, feels like just another event. It is not the monster we were promised a few weeks ago. By the time UFC CEO Dana White made the announcement, the hype for this event had died.
The White House event will feature a lightweight title unifier between champ Ilia Toparia and interim champ Justin Gaethje. The heavyweight title will be fought between Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane. Apart from these fights, there will be a handful of fights just like in any other event.
It would be a great offering as a numbered event in the UFC. However, it doesn’t look like the greatest UFC event of all time, just like they promised.
It features a real title fight and one interim title fight. The real champ is at home in England and healing his injuries.
UFC promised one thing and delivered something else. We’ve endured months of speculation and months of fighters volunteering for a spot on the card. Fans and experts also engaged in the hype by matchmaking their own fantasy fights. But, in the end, what we got was not something that looked fantastic.
The fans were deprived of a title fight in 2025. Even after that, there is no exciting event happening in White House card. Very little is planned for this event. The promise of $60 million fights on the White House lawn was creating all the hype surrounding the event. They even reported a potential loss of $30 million
Topuria and Gaethje were already headed for the clash, and that fight did make sense. But nobody saw Pereira vs Gane coming in this event. People have been waiting to see Sean O’Malley face Aiemann Zahabi for a long time. They could have added that as a bonus to make it somewhat interesting.
So, all in all, it would be like another normal event that is happening in Chicago, Salt Lake City, or Newark. When you are putting on the UFC promotion at the White House, you must introduce something extraordinary to surprise us.
This event will surely expose UFC to potential new fans, but the slate for this event will not cut it.
