It’s Supposedly Creating a New Generation of Trump Voters Before Our Eyes. I Found Reason to Be Skeptical.

At the ceremonial weigh-ins for an Ultimate Fighting Championship event in Las Vegas over the summer, I could see why the fandom of this immensely popular MMA promotion has become something of a MAGA boogeyman in the 2024 election. Behind me at the T-Mobile Arena, a row of young white guys started yelling “WE LOVE YOU JOE ROGAN!!!!” whenever their favorite podcaster, sporting a Black Rifle Coffee T-shirt, announced each of the fighters on stage—and then all but hooted and beat their chests every time an American showed up to compete against a foreign fighter. Later, while I waited to take a piss, a pair of dudes almost got into a fight in the stadium’s men’s bathroom over their personal space. In the stands, I saw one kid rocking a T-shirt branded with the Trump mug shot, and another wearing a tee with the notoriously homophobic Sean Strickland juxtaposed with an American flag. Heading into the gender-gap election, the loudest bros of the UFC world were looking rather Trump-y.

It seems so obvious, at first. Where did Donald Trump himself go for comfort after he was convicted on 34 felony charges in New York? To a UFC showdown in New Jersey, where he arrived to roaring applause and launched his campaign’s TikTok account. Who’s been working as his campaign spokesman since 2016? Former UFC comms guy Steven Cheung. Who introduced Trump at the Republican National Convention in lieu of his wife, Melania? None other than UFC CEO Dana White, marking the executive’s third consecutive RNC address on behalf of his longtime friend and former business partner. (White and Trump’s friendship goes way back; in the early 2000s, Trump’s casinos were some of the only venues that would host UFC fights.)

And who got Trump to adopt a different media strategy from last time, introducing him to all the reactionary-lite influencers who’ve been eagerly hosting Trump on their podcasts? White again, who shares with his pal a tendency to denigrate the mainstream media and embrace the friendly bros (e.g., Theo Von) who command a wide audience of young American men.

And in the years since White endorsed Trump’s 2016 candidacy, quite a few popular fighters have ramped up their bigoted rhetoric. Conor McGregor, the brash, arrogant former champion from Ireland, baited his nemesis, Khabib Nurmagomedov—a stoic generational talent from Dagestan—by personally insulting him and his family with Islamophobic remarks. Colby Covington, who has made MAGA his whole brand, made racist comments against Black UFC fighters Tyron Woodley and Kamaru Usman that earned mass pushback from other mixed martial artists. Sean Strickland has repeatedly mused that women should go back to the kitchen instead of appearing in the ring. All three have plenty of fans who’ve stuck by them and defended all those actions. Recent features in national outlets have called the UFC a “MAGA breeding ground” and a “platform for MAGA ideology,” suggesting its fan base is being primed to vote for Trump, almost uniformly.

But the personal perspective of fans, and even of proudly liberal top UFC fighters, has been notably missing in these kinds of stories. Mixed martial arts, which also extends far outside UFC, is a $12 billion industry with a lot of global fans—millions of regular viewers per match, across pay-per-view and cable, commanding the attention of an estimated 20 percent of the U.S. youth demographic (the overwhelming majority of those followers being men, even though women viewers are catching up). And not all UFC fans and fighters love Trump back. Almost an entire arena of them booed him in 2019. The UFC roster includes Black and brown women, Muslims, LGBTQ fighters, and nationals of at least 78 different countries. More than a few of its current and former stars have explicitly spoken out against Trump, in favor of Kamala Harris and the LGBTQ community, and in support of Palestine and Black Lives Matter and even the British Labour Party.

I wanted to find out for myself what some UFC fans thought of this new brand of politics ascribed to them, so I traveled to the UFC’s hometown of Las Vegas. The city is one of the most important campaign stops in the swing state of Nevada, and any locals I met there would also just happen to belong to one of the most coveted groups of voters this cycle. Trump himself probably believes he has these voters wrapped up. But in Nevada, despite the atmosphere at the weigh-in, I found a much more complicated reality.

Mixed martial arts is as messy, diverse, and unpredictable as America itself. It hails from a sweeping range of foreign countries and cultures—some of the most popular fighting styles come from Japan, Brazil, and Thailand—and started out in the U.S. as an underdog that grew into a cultural and, yes, political force.

As with most sports, the great majority of fans tend to watch from their homes or at designated bars. The die-hards who welcomed Trump at UFC right after his indictment paid up to $4,000 for the privilege, if they were in any of the good seats. And the people I met at those raucous, bro-y weigh-ins were mostly out-of-towners, the kind of tourists you encounter up and down the Las Vegas Strip. I knew a lot of the local fans likely didn’t hit up the designated UFC bars downtown or even live near that most crowded part of Vegas. So after getting acquainted with the version of UFC fandom you can see on TV, I ventured deeper into the Las Vegas Valley, to the smaller, quieter municipality of Henderson, about 15 miles south of the city.

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