MMA analyst Luke Thomas has delivered an unequivocal assessment of the UFC’s upcoming White House event, declaring it “100% sportswashing” and nothing else.
During his show Luke Thomas Gets Political, Thomas responded to a viewer question about the Trump administration’s association with the UFC. “It’s definitely sports. I mean, it’s 100% sports washing. It’s not anything else,” Thomas stated plainly.
Thomas rejected the notion that President Trump simply enjoys fights, calling such explanations inadequate. “Please be a f**king adult. It is political payback in a good way. Not like f**k you, but like it is a political reward for the role that the UFC played in rehabilitating Donald Trump. The UFC was more instrumental in that role than virtually anything else,” he explained.
The analyst emphasized the UFC’s significance in Trump’s political rehabilitation following January 6th. “The first place he went to in terms of like a public reception kind of situation after January 6 was a f**king UFC event. And they paraded him not just as a president, but as a candidate during that. And they had multiple fighters who acted as surrogates,” Thomas noted.
He highlighted the UFC’s influence in reaching voters who don’t typically participate in elections and helping “rehabilitate his image to make him more of a friendly candidate following a fake elector scheme where he tried to steal a presidential election.” Thomas added that former UFC employees now work in the White House.
“Trump is very good about rewarding people in his orbit. He is rewarding the UFC with this kind of a once in a lifetime opportunity that basically no other sports league could ever possibly dream of getting,” Thomas said. “And anyone else who tells you anything other than that just doesn’t know what the f**k they’re talking about or they’re lying.”
When asked about potential backlash, Thomas acknowledged risks if Trump’s popularity deteriorates but noted: “The UFC and MMA more generally is the Alamo as far as it, as far as like Trump world is concerned. I mean, this is the funny part about it. People like, ‘Oh, MMA is not a right wing sport.’ Not only is it a right wing sport, it’s an aggressively right wing sport.”
On covering the event, Thomas stated: “It’s an event to cover as an event. And it’s also an event to cover in terms of what it means and what it signifies and what it represents. It is both of those things. And that is how I intend to cover it because that’s the truth.”
In Thomas’s view, the UFC White House event is a calculated reward for loyalty, influence, and narrative control.
