Two citizens have filed a lawsuit against the National Park Service in an attempt to prevent next Sunday’s UFC Freedom 250 White House event from occurring. The two claim that the event is part of “a corrupt scheme to hand the White House South Lawn and Lincoln Memorial to a private, for-profit sports promoter in violation of federal law.”

An organization calling itself the Public Integrity Project filed the lawsuit on behalf of the individuals. The plaintiffs are Paul Romano, a retired Air Force Sargeant and Vietnam veteran and Susan Douglas, a longtime civic activist.

The press release accompanying the lawsuit highlights that the president purchased “up to $50,000 in UFC parent company TKO stock earlier this spring, while White’s company is selling VIP packages for $1.5 million each, and benefiting from what one TKO executive [Mark Shapiro]called “the greatest earned-marketing tool of all time.” They also point out that for people to watch, it must pay the Paramount+ subscription fee.

The lawsuit identifies three causes of action which it claims is unlawful for the administration to carry out the event at the White House and weigh-ins at the Lincoln Memorial. It cites a violation of the National Park Service regulations which prohibit sports events on the grounds. It notes that the UFC is planning the event. It also points to the “claw,” the overhang structure that is intended to provide some shelter and lights for the Sunday’s festivities. The plaintiffs cite a federal code that “no structure may be erected on federal parklands in the District of Columbia without express congressional authorization.” There is no evidence showing such authority was exercised or even a request for the structure. Finally, the National Environmental Policy Act is cited to the fact that there has been no environmental impact assessment for the repairs that are anticipated for the White House lawn.

It is expected that the lawsuit will seek an injunction from the event from happening. But, as we know with this administration, they do what they please regardless of whether something is against the law or not.

The next step for the plaintiffs is to seek the injunction this week and an expedited hearing will occur this week. It has to show four primary things for a Court to issue an injunction: 1) they will be irreparably harmed if the injunction is not issued, 2) they must show that they are likely to win the case on its merits, 3) the balance of hardships favors the plaintiffs and 4) it is in the public’s interest. The one issue that plaintiffs may have here is a showing of being irreparably harmed. The key legal words to spot to show irreparable harm is it is “imminent, certain, and cannot be adequately remedied by monetary damages.” This may be a hard hurdle for plaintiffs since money damages (paying to replace the lawn) could easily remedy the situation. As for the disregard of governmental protocols in handling the event, it would be difficult to determine what a Court might do.

MPO will keep you up to date on this lawsuit this week.

UFC Fight Night 278 took place Saturday night at the Apex. The company handed out four $100K bonuses.

The Fight of the Night went to Brendan Allen and Edmen Shahbazyan with Allen earning the victory. Each fighter won $100K for a fight that the judges believed Allen won handily.

Iwo Baraniewski earned a $100K Performance Bonus with an easy win over Junior Tafa. It only took 85 seconds for Baraniewski to overwhelm Tafa and earn the stoppage.

Edgar Chairez earned the other $100K Performance with a first round RNC submission over Bruno Silva.

The $25K finish bonuses went to Bryce Mitchell, Alessandro Costa, Chelsea Chandler, Joanderson Brito and Ketlen Souza.

In the main event, Gabriel Bonfim made a firm statement that he’s a contender at welterweight by defeating the former champion Belal Muhammad.

Vanity Fair is reporting that several prominent A-list celebrities have advised that they will not be in attendance next Sunday.

Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson, Adam Sandler, Jared Leto and Mario Lopez have all indicated that they will not be in attendance for the event at the White House. Guy Ritchie, Jason Statham and Tom Brady have all been invited as well but no word if they have RSVP’d as of yet.

According to many outlets, there are a limited amount of tickets (approximate 4,300) available with the president holding the lion share of tickets to dole out.

But, the polarizing nature of the event and the president is making celebrities pause about attending the event. Notably, the White House announced a “Freedom 250” concert series. However, almost all of the acts that were named to perform have backed out with the exceptions of Vanilla Ice and FloRida. This gives pause to think about why this is happening?

Are all of these stars too busy to attend an event at the White House? Or, is it the perception that being a part of this polarizing event may impact their own popularity? I tend to think its the latter.

More than the actual fights that will occur next Sunday, its the people that show up that will be scrutinized.

Yahoo! Sports reports that BOXXER is suing TKO’s Zuffa Boxing over the alleged stealing two of its fighters. Both fighter are scheduled to debut on Saturday in England as Zuffa Boxing makes its debut outside of the Apex and the U.S.

BOXXER, owned by Ben Shalom, is a UK promotion that claims that Chris Billlam-Smith and Sam Hickey were illegally signed by White’s Zuffa Boxing. The company is seeking injunctive relief against Zuffa Boxing and broadcaster Sky Sports. Notably, Boxxer has a four-year broadcast deal with Sky Sports.

Billiam-Smith claimed his deal ended at the end of 2025 but BOXXER alleges that he was still within an exclusive negotiating window. It also stated that it had a “right to match” any offer within its contract.

Hickey, according to BOXXER, was in a long-term contract with the promotion when he signed with Zuffa Boxing.

Promoter Shaa Wasmund is a co-defendant to the lawsuit and claims to have helped secure the deal with Sky for Zuffa Boxing.

While we are not experts in the UK legal systems, one might infer that this will not be the only lawsuit occurring between promotions and Zuffa Boxing as the company makes inroads into the industry. We will see if this is something in which Zuffa was going to attempt to buy out the rest of the contract or a legitimate issue. MPO will continue to follow.

Similar to UFC Noche at the Sphere in 2024, Dana White tells the Hollywood Reporter says that it will “tell the story of America” in between fights at the UFC White House event. I’m afraid to know.

Dana’s “Love letter to Mexican combat sports” at the Sphere included artistic interpretations in between fights.

The Hollywood Reporter reported that the “Claw,” the rigging that will be overhead of the Octagon was made in Belgium, shipped to Philadelphia and put on a truck to D.C.

The article glazes TKO and White for admitting that it is not making any money, and in fact losing money. And, despite the fact that it has sponsorships from Crypto.com, Monster Energy and Ram trucks it will still be in the red on this event. What is touched on briefly is that the UFC (and TKO) will be receiving an abundance of press for this event. Even though White has consistently indicated that it is not political. Yet, many influential politicians will be in attendance and the administration are (essentially) selling the opportunity to be at the event.

Also, we don’t know anything about the contractors that are doing this work. Government employees? Private company? If private, who owns it?

As far as the storytelling aspect of the event, one would suspect that it will be based on a Euro-centric version of the United States. I doubt that on Donald Trump’s birthday anyone veers away from the script.

The UFC and Paramount announced that the company has signed a new media rights deal for numbered events to air on Paramount+ in Canada starting in 2027. This ends the UFC PPVs in the country.

This past August TKO announced a huge deal with Paramount to move UFC in the U.S. to Paramount+ effectively ending numbered PPVs in the United States in January. As more media rights deals are ending with the UFC, the Paramount is scooping them up.

It is reported as a six-year deal and the monetary terms were not announced. The deal includes the annual 13-UFC numbered events. The announcement was not specific if Fight Night events would be exclusive to Paramount.

Paramount currently has media rights deals with the United States and Latin America to air UFC content.

The current deal in Canada began in 2019 and ends at the end of 2026.

With its current media deal with ESPN ending at the end of the year the Professional Fighters League is shopping its media rights around. Could Netflix or Fox be next?

According to a report from the Sports Business Journal, the PFL is talking to Netflix and Fox. The PFL has been with ESPN since 2019. Unlike the UFC, the PFL has not been featured on its network as it was always secondary to the UFC. Even with the UFC’s exit, the PFL has not been put in a position to succeed. It remains behind the digital platform for most events and when it is on the network it rarely gets the necessary marketing to push for people to be reminded that it is on.

CEO John Martin has been direct about his dismay that ESPN has not properly promoted the PFL product even with the company doing more events this year. While it still does overseas events, it held an event in Pittsburgh this past spring to little or not run-up. It is also holding an event in San Diego in late June and on Long Island in July.

Payout Perspective:

Now would be the time for the PFL to make inroads with another network for its product. The SBJ article noted that the company has 230 fighters under its contract. But, only Dakota Ditcheva and Usmar Nurmogomedov are stars that are ascending and could possibly be the face of the company. However, Nurmogomedov’s contract is ending soon and Ditcheva does not have opponents which could help her elevate her profile. With Jake Paul’s MVP Promotions coming off a successful event and looking to add more. In 2027, Scott Coker’s new MMA league is slated to start. Thus, Martin has to come up big for the PFL with a media deal for next to keep it going and deal with the new competition as well as staving off the UFC from signing any of its top stars.

Scott Coker is heading up an investor funded MMA league in 2027 and it seems like he’s bringing back a lot of familiar names to the sport. The Hollywood Reporter was one of the first to report.

Kevin Kay, who spearheaded MMA on Spike TV, will become the league’s chief content officer. In addition, Rich Chou, the former Strikeforce and Bellator matchmaker will be the Executive VP of Talent Relations. Paolo Boccotti who worked for Fight Code and Bellator in the past was added as an Executive VP. Rounding the announcements on Tuesday, Tom Fox will serve as the Chief Operating Officer, Lawrence Stuart will be another Executive VP and Chris DeBlasio will serve as Executive VP as Global Head of Communications.

Coker is the co-founder and CEO of the mixed martial arts league which has yet to reveal its name. The announcement of Kay and Chou seem to be the most notable due to many in the MMA space recognizing their names. Among Kay’s stops within the industry was at Spike TV where he worked with Coker during Bellator’s stint on the network. He also was the executive that greenlit The Ultimate Fighter. Chou is well-respected in MMA circles largely for his work with Strikeforce as a matchmaker. He took over matchmaking responsibilities at the age of 30 back in 2009.

Coker stated on Ariel Helwani’s show that he intends to sign 100 to 150 fighters for the upstart league which has a reported initial investment of $60 million.

Despite a hearing in early March to hash out discovery issues, the plaintiffs on behalf of Kajan Johnson have renewed its seeking sanctions against Dominance MMA for not complying with the Court order. In response Dominance denies any non-compliance and argues that plaintiffs have overblown the discovery dispute.

Dominance MMA, a non-party, to the lawsuit involving Johnson and other fighters suing the UFC was served with a subpoena for documents in January 2025. The subpoena requested information from the phone of Ali Abdelaziz among other relevant evidence related to the lawsuit. The reason for obtaining the information is that it is relevant to the antitrust lawsuit as it may reveal potential forcing fighters to accept coercive contracts. Also, any evidence that managers may have colluded with the UFC to tie fighters into contracts.

Previously, Plaintiffs filed an Order to Show Cause which included a detailed amount for sanctions in the amount of $270K. Dominance opposed the motion.

A hearing on March 3rd sided with Plaintiffs in requiring Dominance to produce responsive documents and continue to do so. It also indicated that it would grant a motion for sanctions which had to be filed with the Court.

However, it appears that the pipe-flow of documents did not occur as Plaintiffs have renewed its motion to require the production of documents.

From Plaintiffs’ recent brief:

Plaintiffs seek an order compelling Dominance to immediately produce all nonprivileged
responsive documents in its possession, custody, or control, including all nonprivileged responsive
documents collected by HOLO, and to cease conducting linear relevance review of documents,
which Dominance continues to do in spite of the Court’s prior instruction that Dominance was not to
conduct linear relevance review.

Of the 126,000 documents that Plaintiffs claim that Dominance produced “less than 2,000 documents” on the date that it was suppose to provide the documents in April. Plaintiffs argue that Dominance is demanding payment for production of documents including the need to continue to conduct a linear relevancy review of documents in its possession.

Plaintiffs further state in its brief:

Dominance filed an opposition to the renewed motion. In it it argues “substantial compliance” with the Court order and downplaying contempt of court.

The Plaintiffs will file a Reply and rebut the arguments. But, it is clear that Plaintiffs are willing to doggedly seek documents from Dominance. Obviously, as non-party to a lawsuit, it is a drastic measure to seek sanctions. But plaintiffs believe that noncompliance would hurt its case. Moreover, if they are not dogged in attempting to obtain the evidence, they may never get it.

MPO will continue to follow.

UFC Macau took place on Saturday in Macau, China. The headliner, Song Yadong, earned one of the Performance Bonuses.

Yadong was the only Chinese fighter to win on the card as he submitted Deiveson Figueiredo in the second round of the main event. For his finish, he earned $100K.

Kai Asakura earned a $100K bonuses with his first round KO of Cameron Smotherman. He used a right hand combination to back up Smotherman and then a left hand to end the night.

The Fight of the Night went to Alonzo Menifield and Zhang Mingyang. Menifield stopped the Chinese fighter with a series of punches which stopped Mingyang. Both received $100K in an upset for Menifield.

In addition, Sergei Pavlovich, Luis Felipe, Cody Haddon, Rei Tsurya, Rodrigo Vera and Jaqueline Amormin all earned $25,00 finish bonsues.