Controversy and a corporate spectacle under the Claw: Trumpâs birthday fight night at the White House
Despite a last-ditch legal bid to block the event, the White House spent the night as a marketing department for the private fighting company A warm Sunday night on the South Lawn â with bright lights, fireworks, a fighter plane flyover, thousands of spectators, and the first major professional sporting event ever staged at the White House â produced many memorable scenes. One might linger more than most. Justin Gaethje, the American interim lightweight champion, stood alone in the Oval Office in his fight shorts, draped in an American flag, studying a framed Declaration of Independence before he turned to walk out to the cage. It wasnât the first time hand-to-hand combat had taken place on the grounds of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Theodore Roosevelt boxed and wrestled there, sparring with aides, and a session with a young military officer detached the retina in his left eye, leaving him partially blind for the rest of his presidency. Roosevelt told almost no one, and it wasnât disclosed publicly until he left office. But Sunday, or Donald Trumpâs 80th birthday, inverted that mystique. The combat â inside an octagon, overshadowed by 92ft of steel called âthe Clawâ â
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