So let’s get the first thing out of the way. Josh Hokit is a moron who gets hit in the head professionally and shouldn’t be allowed around a microphone for that dumbass Michelle Obama line.

Other than that, I didn’t hate UFC Freedom 250 at all.

America is a place where we take risks. We reward innovation and a never say die spirit. And at times Americans need to do something just because they can. Holding a UFC card on the White House’s South Lawn is one of those thing we do in this country because we can.

Now to the positives. The venue was incredible. The White House is gorgeous. Whoever was in charge of the production truck was damned good at their job. All of the walkouts were slickly filmed and produced to look like nothing anyone had ever seen before.

When the UFC does music normally they’re piping tunes in over a sound system. For UFC Freedom 250 we got amazing performances by the President’s Own Marine Band. The music was so good Dana White (the UFC’s President) is currently working on an album version of all the music played that night.

Every fighter that came to the Octagon had American heroes as escorts: one Medal of Honor recipient and one first responder. All of these heroes were honored with lower third graphics acknowledging their service to our nation. I’ll never get upset with folks drawing more attention to our military and first responders as they don’t get enough love normally.

Now to begin my analysis of this whole shebang, I watched the ceremonial weigh-ins from the ellipse on YouTube. I scribbled down a few thoughts:

*All of these guys look like they have prison tats.
*Most of these guys look like they have some sort of criminal record.
*”Suga” Sean O’Malley looks like either a Grand Theft Auto character or a Fortnite skin come to life.
*I’m not sure most of these guys passes a name test right now where you’d put two of their names on a marquee and most folks would say “I think that’s a must see fight!”

So I wasn’t really hyped going in.

But I still gave it a chance, because as some folks wrote down almost 250 years ago, “We hold these truths to be self-evident: that all men are created with equal weight classes, and that they are endowed by their Creator with unalienable rights, such as life, liberty and the pursuit of cage fights on the White House’s South Lawn for the President’s birthday.”

Something like that, anyway.

For those who aren’t familiar with the rules of Mixed Martial Arts, all fights are conducted under what used to be called the Unified Rules: standard fights are three five-minute rounds, championship fights go for five five-minute rounds. Fights end on knockout, submission, TKO, or judge’s decision. All bouts are scored on a ten point “must” system with the winner getting 10 points and the loser 9 or under.

If I had to give one fight a “must-see” grade, it would be the main event between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje for the lightweight championship. Topuria coming into this fight was undefeated. Some said he was in contention for the title of “greatest of all time” in the 155-pound class. Justin Gaethje was a journeyman fighter who had won just about everything but the top prize in his division.

On a night set to honor America, Gaethje (the American fighter), walked out of the Oval Office after staring at the Declaration of Independence, draped in the American flag to a cover version of Johnny Cash’s “Ain’t No Grave.” He passed by the wall of Presidents on his way to the Octagon as a massive underdog according to Vegas. And then Gaethje proceeded to beat the Spanish Lightweight champion ruthlessly until a doctor waved the fight off.

That’s America in a nutshell, folks. Never, EVER count us out. Make that mistake and we’ll beat the shit out of you.

Some controversy has marred the Pereira vs. Gane fight: it was stopped in round 2 by referee Herb Dean after Gane landed several unanswered strikes. Now the rules of MMA say the referee’s job is to protect the fighters and to stop the fight if it looks like they can’t defend themselves, but Pereira has said since then Gane landed several blows to the back of his head, which if true would warrant a disqualification (DQ) to Gane.

Hey Alex: Maybe you should’ve listened in the fighter instruction meeting when the ref LITERALLY TOLD YOU HE HAS A TENDENCY TO STRIKE THE BACK OF THE HEAD.

Just saying.

Anyway, if you liked this it was a pretty epic night of fights. If you didn’t like this because Trump or whatever, hey I understand. Just know it’s not happening again. When the President of the fighting league says he needs at least a year to financially recover from the event, it’s a good sign he’s not doing it again.

Dana White’s got two “nevers” on his plate now. He’ll never run the Sphere again and he’ll never do a card at the White House again. For a guy who’s allegedly a massive control freak over his product, I don’t blame him one bit.

America only needs one good “hold my beer” moment on its 250th birthday. This was it.