March 2026 was a big month for anyone keeping tabs on the increasingly important intersection between the Trump administration and combat sports.
On March 11, FBI Director Kash Patel announced a partnership between his agency and the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Less than two weeks later, on March 24, the U.S. Senate voted to confirm Mixed Martial Arts fighter–turned–Senator Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. TPM has been on top of all of this with original reporting on how Patel’s deal with the UFC raises legal and ethical questions and how the MMA record that is a core part of Mullin’s brand wasn’t all it was cracked up to be.
These stories also provide fresh evidence that combat sports have become a deeply ingrained part of President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement. It’s an association that has been a core element of Trump’s career. And his embrace of combat sports is something Trump has in common with other right-wing authoritarian leaders.
We dug into that theme during an in-depth discussion on Substack Live this week. Our conversation delved into how modern MMA has become right-coded. We examined the long and at times strange history linking martial arts and politics, including their use by such figures as Idi Amin, Chechen strongman Ramzan Kadyrov, Vladimir Putin, and even Abraham Lincoln. We covered how this relationship has broader implications for the American right, including billion dollar business deals, the growth of the “manosphere,” and a global network of neo-Nazi training programs.
‘FIGHTERS AGAINST SOCIALISM’
Trump has a clear, personal affinity for the combat sports. The deal between the UFC and the FBI was just the latest link between his presidential administration and the world’s largest mixed martial arts promotion. He has a close relationship with UFC CEO Dana White that stretches back decades. And, in June, the UFC is set to stage a landmark fight card on the south lawn of the White House.
Major martial artists have also showed admiration for Trump and his brand of governance. Prominent fighters in combat sports have loudly embraced right-wing politics. During the 2020 presidential race, UFC welterweight Jorge Masvidal helped lead a “Fighters Against Socialism” bus tour staged by the Trump campaign in Florida. Masvidal was later billed as one of the headliners of the FBI’s MMA training session. Former UFC champion Conor McGregor, whose career has faded in recent years due to age and sexual assault allegations, visited with Trump in the Oval Office. Last year, McGregor briefly ran for president in his native Ireland on a staunch anti-immigration platform. Gordon Ryan, who is widely regarded as the best no-gi jiu-jitsu grappler of all time, posted a “border patrol” video on YouTube last year where he boasted about kicking out “illegals” from the “back of my pickup truck.” And the legendary trainer Renzo Gracie, a member of the family that helped establish in both the UFC and the sport of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, has made social media posts promoting right-wing politics. These have included praise for right-wing leaders in Brazil and a slideshow in which Gracie declared “this is my PRIDE FLAG” alongside pictures of him standing with a cybertruck and an American flag as well as a pickup festooned with Trump campaign and “Don’t Tread on Me” banners. Those are just a few notable examples.
There are also many MMA brands that make training gear emblazoned with right-wing imagery and extensive associations between leading fighters and businesses promoting the unconventional health treatments and supplements associated with Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy’s medically questionable MAHA philosophies.
A central figure in all of this is Joe Rogan, who hosts America’s most popular podcast and who elevated Trump in the 2024 election. Rogan’s show has long been viewed as a cornerstone of the right-wing inflected “manosphere” of streaming shows, which is a haven for right-wing politics and MAHA-adjacent medical advice. Rogan, who is a martial arts practitioner, built his career as a UFC broadcaster. Fighters have been a staple of his guest list, particularly as he established his podcasting empire. Through Rogan, combat sports became an essential, foundational element in the highly influential growth of right-wing podcasting.
WRESTLEMANIA’S ‘BATTLE OF THE BILLIONAIRE’S
Trump’s personal relationship with the combat sports goes back decades. In his early career as a real-estate magnate, Trump hosted boxing events, UFC fights, and pro wrestling matches at his Atlantic City casino. Rob Pasbani, editor-in-chief of The Stunner, a professional wrestling publication, talked with TPM about how Trump’s relationship with the largest organization in that sport — which is now known as World Wrestling Entertainment — was particularly deep.
“Donald Trump’s history in the wrestling world goes back to the 80s,” Pasbani said, adding, “He hosted WrestleMania IV at Trump casino. It was actually at the convention center in Atlantic City, but they billed it from Trump Casino.”
Without kayfabe, Donald Trump would not be president
Rob Pasbani, editor-in-chief of The Stunner
Trump apparently offered WWE co-founder Vince McMahon what Pasbani described as a “crazy sweetheart deal.”
“Vince came back the next year for WrestleMania five again, so it was the only Wrestlemanias back to back in the same location until this year,” Pasbani explained.
In later years, McMahon actually brought Trump into the ring with him.
“It all culminated in 2013, which is when they brought Trump in as a character,” Pasbani recounted. “They did this whole storyline where Trump … bought their main flagship show and it was really all just to set up a feud with Vince McMahon, which was the money feud going into that year’s WrestleMania. … They would each have a wrestler representing them and it would be a hair versus hair match where one of the billionaires would shave their heads.”
Of course, in the fake world of pro wrestling, none of this required Trump actually purchasing a television program. He also didn’t have to shave his infamous hair, as the wrestler representing him in the match, which was dubbed “Battle of the Billionaires,” was victorious. Trump was even subsequently inducted into the WWE hall of fame.
Trump has maintained a friendship with McMahon and the other combat sports promoters he built relationships with during this era — boxing businessman Don King and the UFC’s Dana White. And Pasbani believes that McMahon’s marketing strategies in particular rubbed off on Trump. That includes the jingoistic ethos of 80s era pro wrestling, which often featured characters who played cartoonish and villainous versions of foreigners pitted against heroic Americans. It also encompasses “kayfabe,” the theatrical element of pro wrestling where the blatantly staged and exaggerated storylines and fights are presented to the audience as real.
“Without kayfabe, Donald Trump would not be president,” said Pasbani.
Pasbani pointed to the Republican primary debates in 2016 during which Trump put himself on the map by memorably mocking his rivals.
“Donald Trump was portraying the pro wrestling character Donald Trump,” Pasbani said. “He was cutting promos, like doing the equivalent of what a WrestleMania would be against Jeb Bush. … He would give them all nicknames much like The Rock gave wrestlers nicknames. He was demeaning them.”
CASH AND THE COMBAT SPORTS CABINET
Along with incorporating kayfabe and the brash promotional styles of combat sports into his political strategies, Trump has brought figures from the industry into his administration. Linda McMahon, who is Vince McMahon’s wife and helped found the WWE with him, is Trump’s secretary of education. Steven Cheung, the current White House communications director, was previously a spokesperson for the UFC. The wrestler known as “Triple H,” who married into the McMahon family and is a senior WWE executive, has also appeared at the White House and helped the administration promote public health initiatives.
The ties between Trump and the combat sports world aren’t just personal and promotional. There is also real money on the line. In conjunction with Trump’s appearances leading up to the so-called “hair match,” Vince McMahon paid millions to Trump’s charity, which was later plagued by allegations of self-dealing. As of 2023, both the UFC and WWE have been owned by TKO Group Holdings. That company has openly discussed how the coming UFC bouts at the White House are such a major “earned media” opportunity that it is worth their while to lay out about $60 million in costs.
“This is an investment for the long term,” TKO Group Holdings President and Chief Operating Officer Mark Shapiro said of the money being spent on the White House fights during a quarterly earnings call last month.
This major — and valuable — moment in the spotlight for the UFC is coming on the heels of the company’s multibillion dollar deal with Paramount, which has its own complex relationship with Trump that included a large settlement payment after a broadcast that angered the president. TKO Group Holdings CEO Ari Emanuel, the famed Hollywood superagent, also, according to a recent Wall Street Journal report, pressed Trump to intervene as the Justice Department reached a settlement that helped LiveNation and Ticketmaster avoid a breakup.
GLOBAL STRONGMEN
As distinctly Trumpian as the close relationship between politics and the combat sports may be, it’s not an entirely new, or American, phenomenon. Authoritarian leaders around the world have a long history of associating themselves with martial arts.
The brutal Ugandan dictator Idi Amin was a champion boxer in his country. As president, he also touted his prowess and challenged others to fights.
Autocratic Russian President Vladimir Putin is an accomplished martial artist. He’s a black belt in judo and once even filmed his own instructional DVD demonstrating his skills.
Brazil’s Gracie family also had a relationship with the military dictatorship that ruled that country from the 1960s until the mid 1980s. According to the author Roberto Pedreira, Helio Vigio, an ally of the family and leading member of one of their academies during this period, was a detective who was accused of being part of military police death squads. The dictatorship ultimately affected the development and promotion of the sport overall. Pedreira chronicled how the Gracie family began promoting a more nationalistic brand of the sport linked to the warrior ethos as they sought to win approval and funding from the regime’s sports governing bodies.
In Chechnya, the warlord Ramzan Kadyrov has consistently used sports — and particularly MMA — to promote his own cult of personality. Kadyrov, who has ruled with an iron fist for nearly two decades, owns a mixed martial arts gym and league. He’s put his children in fights and promoted images of them training in social media propaganda.
Combat sports have not been exclusively the provenance of right-wing leaders. South Africa’s iconic anti-apartheid crusader and first democratic leader Nelson Mandela was a boxer. Here in America, President Abraham Lincoln earned early fame as an accomplished wrestler. In Canada, two recent figures on the left, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and ex-New Democratic Party leader Jagmeet Singh, have dabbled in boxing and jiu-jitsu.
However, there is a clear and natural synergy between combat sports and the right- wing. Martial arts in many countries have extensive associations with law enforcement and the military. These sports also offer a natural path to burnishing a strongman image and reaching the male audience that is traditionally part of a conservative politician’s base. And that promotional element is clearly where the combat sports have proved particularly important to Trump’s rise.
Martial arts are also increasingly becoming a feature of the far right fringe. White supremacist and neo-Nazi groups like the “active clubs,” Patriot Front, and the Rise Above Movement have made MMA training one of their main activities and recruitment tools. This phenomenon, which has become a global network, raises the prospect and stakes of the street violence that has become a staple of the MAGA era.
The fight is on.
