UFC announces card for White House event

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The UFC on Saturday announced the card for its White House event slated to take place on June 14 as part of President Donald Trump’s America 250 celebration.

There will be two championship bouts on the card.

Ilia Topuria will go up against Justin Gaethje for the UFC World Lightweight Championship and Alex Pereira will take on Ciryl Gane for the interim UFC Heavyweight Championship.

Elsewhere on the card, Sean O’Malley will take on Aiemann Zahabi, Michael Chandler will square off against Mauricio Ruffy, Kyle Daukaus will battle against Bo Nickal and Steve Garcia will go up against Diego Lopes.

The event is being dubbed UFC Freedom 250.

White has been adamant that the event won’t be “too political” despite taking place at the White House with President Donald Trump likely to attend.

“I mean, I don’t know how it would be too political other than it’s at the White House,” he told Bloomberg in January.

“Listen, if you look back throughout history, I think [former President] George Bush was a big baseball fan, [former President Barack] Obama was an NBA fan and Trump is a UFC fan. I don’t think that any of those guys being fans made any sport too political.”

White said his staff has the logistics of the event “dialed in” and noted that around 5,000 will be able to view the fights on the White House lawn while an additional 85,000 people will be able to view the fights on big screens at The Ellipse.