Oval Office octagon: How Trump turned combat sports into a political weapon

Washington, DC – Fists will fly and blood will be spilt at the White House for US President Donald Trump’s 80th birthday.

The Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) event on Sunday, which will also mark next month’s 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, will bring 14 Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) fighters to “The Octagon” cage constructed on the White House South Lawn.

As many as 4,000 invite-only attendees will watch the bouts, which will include two title fights, in an unprecedented display of a sport that has lingered on the fringes but has, nevertheless, been a potent political medium for the president.

Trump, a former television personality, real estate heir and hotel owner, has hewed closely to combat sports, dating back to his scene-stealing embrace of professional wrestling in the late 1980s.

Al Jazeera spoke to experts who study the intersection of sport and society about what the UFC match both reflects and projects of Trump’s pugilistic political career, and how it could be received in the current political moment.

In the 1980s, Trump was solidifying his place as a nationally known real-estate developer, casino magnate, and tabloid-ready socialite. World Wrestling Entertainment (WWE) and its flamboyant entertainment-first style of choreographed wrestling was on a “cultural upswing”, according to Lowery Woodall, a professor at Millersville University in Pennsylvania who studies wrestling.

It was a fast business pairing, beginning with Trump promoting the WWE’s flagship event, Wrestlemania, at a venue near to his Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City, New Jersey in 1988 and 1989.

But Trump’s affinity for the sport and the kindred spirit he appeared to find with WWE co-founder Vince McMahon extended beyond business, into his own nascent personal myth-building.