Construction is under way on the White House lawn for an Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) arena that will host a cage match next month to mark the US’s 250th anniversary and Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.
The mixed martial arts fight is planned for 14 June.
Photos of cranes and other construction equipment on the White House lawn on Tuesday showed the beginnings of the temporary construction. Trump has said that the finished project will feature “a 5,000-seat arena right outside the front door of the White House”.
Online renderings depict what the completed, wire-mesh-fence-ringed fight space is expected to look like. The octagon-shaped cage will be ringed by a red, white and blue stage under a towering arch featuring stars and stripes patterns and two large screens carrying the action live.
The cage and stage will themselves be surrounded by thousands of temporary seats, including ringside space for a full marching band that can set the entire scene to blaring music.
Trump first floated the idea of hosting a UFC fight on the White House grounds last year, during an appearance in Idaho on the Fourth of July when he announced festivities planned to celebrate the country’s 250th birthday.
“Think of this on the grounds of the White House. We have a lot of land there,” he said, originally adding that it would be a “full fight” with 20-25,000 people in attendance.
In December, Trump said the White House event would host “eight or nine championship fights – the biggest fights they’ve ever had”. But like the size of the crowd, the number of fights expected to be held on the White House lawn has shrunk. The fight card includes two title fights: a lightweight championship fight between Ilia Topuria and Justin Gaethje in the main event, and an interim heavyweight title fight between Alex Pereira and Ciryl Gane.
Trump has long been a fan of mixed martial arts, and is close friends with Dana White, the UFC’s president.
As construction began on the White House lawn, competitors at the Scripps National Spelling Bee navigated around it on Tuesday. After 15 years at a convention center in Maryland, the spelling bee was relocated to Washington DC’s Constitution Hall.
Families staying at the nearby JW Marriott would usually walk across the Ellipse to reach the hall, but with construction there, families are making a longer trek around. The parent of one speller, Rajeev Malhotra, described the scene as “two very disparate forms of entertainment”.
Associated Press contributed reporting