The octagon has arrived for UFC White House.
With the historic MMA event just three days away, UFC CEO Dana White’s production team is nearing completion of the setup for the seven-fight card, headlined by a lightweight championship unification bout between the undefeated Ilia Topuria and fan favorite Justin Gaethje, with Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane battling for an interim heavyweight title in the co-main event.
MMA Fighting’s José Youngs is on site in Washington, D.C., and provided exclusive footage of the first look at the octagon on the South Lawn, which you can watch in the video above and in the clip below.
There’s still plenty of work to be done on the production side and the UFC crew will likely be scrambling up to and on fight day to deal with any unforeseen circumstances that could occur as a result of the promotion holding a rare outdoor event. UFC Chief Content Officer Craig Borsari told reporters on Wednesday that his team has put an emphasis on how they will handle poor weather conditions, including if the location is affected by heavy rain or thunderstorms.
“If we have light to moderate rain with no lightning, we’re going to try to push forward,” Borsari said. “That canopy will help, it’s more floor seating maybe a couple of rows up, the bleacher packs, there are people that will get wet, and to be honest, it’s so high up that if we’ve got a bit of a breeze, the rain will start to creep inside that 100-foot diameter.”
Borsari added that it is possible they would have to halt the broadcast due to bad weather, but hopes that at worst the event would be paused and eventually resume.
The exact cost of Sunday’s octagon setup has not been officially revealed, though White has said on multiple occasions that his promotion is footing the bill and expects to take a net loss when the numbers are added up, a small price to pay for the prestige of having the UFC host a show at the White House. President Donald Trump has even suggested that the claw structure could remain on the South Lawn past this weekend.
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