There was so much good about Ultimate Fighting Championship’s grand return to Miami on Saturday night for the first time in 20 years — so much good it was an added shame the night left a sour taste.
It ended up an embarrassment to the sport and to the host city that the UFC 287 mixed martial arts event at the Miami Heat’s downtown arena volunteered its octagon and microphone to become a stage and platform for politics. Even for a sport that trades in barbarism, this was ugly.
Miami-born fighter Jorge Masvidal, 38, lost to Gilbert Burns and afterward announced he was retiring after 20 years in mixed martial arts. So far, so good.
Then came he part that had to have been staged. Masvidal had turned far right in his ideology. In the front row sat UFC president Dana White. Beside him sat his friend former President Donald Trump, who had just been arrested in Manhattan on a 34-felony count indictment. Next to Trump sat Kid Rock, the once-popular singer who reappeared last week in a video using an AR-15 assault weapon to pulverize a case of Bud Light because the beer had partnered with a transgender woman.
This was headed where you might expect.
After thanking his fans and so forth Masvidal pointed to Trump and gushed, “Greatest president in the world sitting right there.” Then, as UFC commentator Joe Rogan held the mic and obediently smiled, Masvidal led the crowd into a half-hearted “Let’s go Brandon!” chant — which arose as a far-right lullaby at a NASCAR event in 2021 when an NBC announcer interviewing driver Brandon Brown mistook the crowd shouting “[Expletive] Joe Biden” as “Let’s go Brandon.”
The lapse into partisan vulgarity, including a profanity directed at Biden by Masvidal, did not serve the retiring fighter well as a parting image.
Masvidal also gushed praise for Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis (perhaps unaware Trump may run against DeSantis), telling the crowd, “Let’s keep Florida free, a red state!”
Not sure, but maybe Masvidal meant free to now carry concealed weapons in the state with no permit, even as mass murders keep happening in America and Kid Rock uses a weapon-of-choice AR-15 to demonstrate his bigotry against the LGBTQ+ community.
Should a UFC fight double as a far-right rally?
Should any sporting event double as a stage for an overt political agenda?
I don’t want to see and hear the other side, either.
It would almost be as if Vice President Kamala Harris happened to be courtside at an NBA game and afterward a player went on a televised political rant that included leading the crowd in a vulgar anti-Trump chant as the TV guy with the mic just smiled.
That is what happened but in reverse at this UFC event.
Before Saturday the sport had held several smaller cards in South Florida: In Hollywood in 2006, twice in 2007 and in 2015; and in Sunrise in 2012 and ‘19. But this was the first top-tier numbered event since the same Miami arena (several name changes ago) hosted UFC 42 in 2003.
That one drew about 7,500 fans. This one drew a full house of 19,032, and a gate of $11.9 million for UFC. That had White extolling Miami and promising an annual return.
“This place is booming,” he raved. “This place is at a whole different level.”
Your sport is always welcome back in Miami, Dana.
But next time, leave the graceless, classless political pimping behind.
