Brendan Schaub has a message for MMA fans weighing whether to tune out the UFC’s planned White House event on political grounds: if that is where you have landed, your connection to the sport may have been more casual than you realized.
In a recent video, the former UFC heavyweight contender challenged what he sees as a misplaced sense of priority among fans and commentators who have let the event’s political backdrop overshadow its significance to the sport.
If you decide to take a stand and not watch/cover the UFC White House card cause of your politics, you’re probably not that big of a fan to begin with or you’ve been compromised by social media and the political “team” you side with. There’s an octagon on the White House lawn.… pic.twitter.com/zGqajWCHHM
— Brendan Schaub (@BrendanSchaub) April 22, 2026
“Do y’all forget where we came from? And now it’s on CBS at the White House,” Schaub said. “If you can’t put your political bias to the side and just celebrate this as far as a sport… the sport that you know and love is having a once in a lifetime event at the White House. It will never happen again.”
Schaub drew a sharp comparison, likening fans who would sit out the event to people who cut off contact with family members over political disagreements.
“This is like the people that don’t talk to their parents because they voted for the left or the right. What, you’re letting that stuff get in the way of your relationship with your friends and family?” he said.
He directed similar criticism at voices within the MMA media space who have taken adversarial positions toward the event.
“These people who are in my space, whether MMA analysts or whatever, who are all anti anti-UFC, anti-Trump, ‘oh this is far-right propaganda,’ you’ve lost your way, bubba. You’ve lost your way,” Schaub said.
His sharpest challenge came in the form of a history lesson for those who have forgotten how recently the sport was grinding for mainstream legitimacy.
Schaub said, “Remember when you guys were figh ting for the UFC to be mainstream? Remember when you were figh ting, not getting views on your website, not getting views on your podcasts or your shows and they were getting canceled left and right?”
He continued, “Remember when you were figh ting for this to be mainstream? It will never be done again. And y’all want to ha te on it, you don’t want to appreciate that because you don’t like that Trump’s doing this or that. What president do you agree with 100 percent? You’re letting all that get in the way of what they have accomplished.”
He also pushed back against what he sees as inconsistency in how people apply their political objections to consumer choices, using his own relationship with entertainment as an example.
“When Disney’s putting out this woke weird, which I don’t agree with, I don’t not go to Disney. It’s not gonna affect my life,” he said. “It’s crazy to me.”
There has been a heated conversation about the UFC’s political identity in recent times. UFC CEO Dana White has taken a characteristically direct stance on the controversy, dismissing suggestions that the promotion should keep its distance from its associations.
“How about you be authentic and just be yourself? You don’t have to agree with me, and you don’t have to like it, and I don’t have to agree with you, but we can all still just get along. I mean, that’s how this is supposed to work,” White said.
The counterpoint has been articulated most forcefully by MMA analyst Luke Thomas, who has argued that the organization’s alignment with Donald Trump represents a permanent shift in who the sport speaks to and who feels welcomed within its audience.
Thomas has drawn a direct line back to UFC 264 in 2021, contending that the decision to platform Trump in the months following January 6 was a defining moment the promotion cannot move past. In his view, no subsequent outreach to politicians outside Trump’s orbit changes that underlying reality.
Thomas has also acknowledged, however, that the White House event carries genuine commercial potential. With the card set to air on CBS and Paramount Plus, the removal of the traditional pay-per-view barrier could draw a far wider casual audience, and he described record viewership as “absolutely on the table” given the right matchmaking.
Still, he has cautioned that the current political climate surrounding the administration introduces its own set of complications, and that media coverage will inevitably split along partisan lines, with political press taking a far more adversarial tone than sports media.
