It didn’t work out for Alex Poatan Pereira, 38, a Brazilian fighter who challenged for the interim heavyweight belt in the early hours of this Monday (15), in a fight held in the UFC (Ultimate Fighting Championship) arena set up in the White House garden.
Poatan was looking to reach the unprecedented position, among men, of a fighter with belts in three weight categories, as he won the middleweight and light heavyweight titles.
Frenchman Ciryl Gane, 36, who won the belt in dispute in 2021, defeated Poatan in the second round, after keeping the Brazilian off balance with a sequence of connected punches.
UFC Freedom 250 is part of the festivities calendar for the 250th anniversary of the country’s independence and is held in an arena built in the south garden of the White House, the seat of the American government, in what has been read as yet another nod from Donald Trump (this Sunday’s birthday boy) to his male electorate who is fond of displays of virility and dominance.
The night also saw the victory of two other Brazilians, in non-belt fights.
Poatan arrived at the arena making his traditional entrance to the sound of indigenous songs – he is a descendant of the Pataxó people. His nickname comes from the Tupi-Guarani for “stone hand”. The Brazilian passed by the United States Presidents’ Hall of Fame and, at the top of the stairs, still in the White House building, he simulated launching an arrow, using an imaginary bow. A scream ended the spectacle that preceded his arrival at the arena.
The Brazilian is considered a technically unorthodox fighter. Kickboxing champion, he arrived in MMA with less mastery of ground and takedown techniques than his opponents with experience in disciplines such as Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) and Greco-Roman wrestling.
Juliano Spyer, columnist for Sheet and combat sports researcher, says that Poatan’s style combines strength, precision, speed and the rare ability to read his opponent’s behavior. “[Ele] Identifies patterns, provokes reactions and creates traps that open space for devastating knockouts”, he wrote, in Sheet.
This time, the technical style was not enough to guarantee the belt. He, who gave up the light heavyweight belt to move up a weight class, said he will still discuss with his team whether he will continue in the heavyweight division. “If I hadn’t taken risks every time, I wouldn’t be here,” he said.
The main fight of the night was the longest of the seven on the card. Underdog Justin Gaethje, 37, interim lightweight champion, defeated Georgian-Spanish Ilia Topuria, considered the favorite. The belt unification fight ended in the fourth and penultimate round.
Topuria, 29, who was once featherweight champion, was evaluated by a doctor in the Octagon between the third and fourth rounds and was released to continue fighting for the belt. Very hurt, he said he couldn’t see due to the swelling in one of his eyes.
At the end of the fourth round, his team said he would fight until the end, but the referee ended the dispute, guaranteeing the title to American Justin Gaethje, who left the octagon with the belt and practically in one piece.
Two other Brazilians fought tonight.
The first fight in the White House octagon was won by Diego Lopes, 31, from Manaus, in the featherweight category, who knocked out American Steve Garcia, 34, in the second round, after landing a series of punches, taking his opponent to the ground.
Diego is the current number two in the UFC rankings and has already challenged for the belt twice. With this Sunday’s victory, he reaches 12 wins by knockout and 15 in the first round.
Fellow Brazilian Maurício Ruffy, 29, defeated Michel Chandler, 40, by knockout in the first round, confirming the nickname “One Shot”, something like “single shot”. Ruffy, who is from São Paulo but grew up in Alagoas, now has 13 knockout victories in 12 fights.
Not even the chants of “USA, USA” from Chandler’s fans before the fight erased Ruffy’s favoritism. The American fighter was more experienced, with 23 wins in 33 fights, but he was coming from a bad phase.
In the brief interview at the end of the fight, Ruffy asked his wife, Nadine, to marry him. He said that when the two met, they didn’t have money for a party. “Nadine, will you marry me? Now we can have a party and thank God”, said the Brazilian.
The first clash between two Americans ended with the victory of Bo Nickal, 30, with a technical knockout in a confrontation with Kyle Daukaus, 33, in the first round.
After a series of standing strikes, Nickal managed to take Daukaus down and submitted him. At the end of the fight, Nickal left the Octagon to greet the night’s guest of honor, President Trump, who was accompanied, in addition to White, by First Lady Melania Trump.
In the heavyweight category, another fight between two Americans. Josh Hokit, 28, beat Derrick Lewis, 41, by technical knockout in the second round, after landing a sequence of jabs. Known as the “Black Beast”, Lewis is the greatest knockout artist in UFC history.
Hokit, who presents himself as the “Incredible Hokit”, in reference to the comic book hero Hulk, is a fan of “trash talk”. At the end of tonight’s fight, he praised President Trump, whom he greeted in the audience, cited a lie propagated on the far right, that former first lady Michelle Obama “is a man” and provoked Alex Poatan.
In the bantamweight category, Sean O’Malley, 31, from the United States, achieved his eighth consecutive victory by knocking down Canadian Aiemann Zahabi, 38, in the second round in a technical knockout. He was once champion in his weight class and is now fighting to regain the belt.
Donald Trump’s political show
Before the card began, Trump and Dana White, the UFC CEO and his longtime friend and supporter, left the White House Oval Office together to the South Wing balcony. From there, they listened to the national anthem sung by Zac Brown. The ceremony also had US Air Force fighter jets flying over the White House in delta formation. After the anthem, Trump and White walked to the arena together.
In the intervals between fights, tributes were shown to the emergency services that acted in tragedies such as 9/11. In one of these videos, a narrator talks about the history of American battles since independence and ends by including UFC MMA fighters as the warriors of this historic time.
Mark Zuckerberg, owner of Meta, the company that runs Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp, which since Trump’s re-election has moved closer to the right-wing camp, announced during the fight break that all blind veterans will receive free Ray-Ban from Meta, smart glasses developed by the two companies.
