The White House’s UFC Arena Is ‘All Lit Up’ — And It Looks Like Total ‘S**t,’ Critics Say

The White House is preparing the UFC arena for Sunday’s bloody brawl on the South Lawn, and it’s looking a hell of a lot like a laser light show.

The arena was “all lit up” on Tuesday night, according to a post shared on X by journalist Aaron Rupar, as crews make arrangements for UFC’s “Freedom 250″ fight card.

And while just a few lights were on inside the White House, the open-air arena behind it looked like a glowing orb in comparison.

Rupar’s clip shows rows of strobe lights — some shaped like stars, patriotic imagery for America’s 250th birthday — beaming from the structure, landing around and onto the nearby executive mansion.

UFC’s octagon arena is set to be housed inside the 600-ton, 92-foot-tall and 154-foot-wide structure that’s been deemed the “claw,” an apparatus built in Europe that gives off an “arcade crane game” appearance, ESPN reported last week.

The look of the final structure was the result of UFC boss Dana White insisting that the “entire White House” be visible during the event and led to an apparatus that’s 22 feet taller than the executive mansion itself, per ESPN.

The structure is expected to be taken down following the fight night on Sunday, which is also President Donald Trump’s birthday, and shipped across the Atlantic Ocean before it’s reassembled for the Lorde, Sombr and Tyler, The Creator-headlined summer music festival Lowlands in the Netherlands.

the White House’s UFC arena is all lit up tonight pic.twitter.com/cKMfozEooD

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) June 10, 2026

Critics on X made a mockery of the arena’s appearance, including progressive YouTuber Jack Cocchiarella, who wrote that it “looks like shit.”

Another reacted by declaring that “Idiocracy was a documentary,” a nod to the rundown, trash-filled White House lawn as seen in the 2006 Mike Judge movie.

Looks like shit https://t.co/GHz6KMdW9H

— Jack Cocchiarella (@JDCocchiarella) June 10, 2026

Looks like shit https://t.co/ODyXWO7kYA

— Drugotz (@Drugotz790thejo) June 10, 2026

it’s like a scene from a c-tier 90s movie about an 8-year-old who gets to control an evil president’s decisions 20% of the time but before they both learn their moral lesson the 8-year-old does shit like this https://t.co/RTqFI9P16c

— anya (@anyaxmar) June 10, 2026

They’ve elected a new podcaster to lead them https://t.co/pWmOX0EMnl

— Fuck You I Quit (@fuckyouiquit) June 10, 2026

Just as the founders intended https://t.co/HPgAGAvZIj

— The Tennessee Holler (@TheTNHoller) June 10, 2026

We had a good run but its over https://t.co/ogZgrexNxA

— Canadian Prepper (@PrepperCanadian) June 10, 2026

Remember when Michelle’s vegetable garden went too far https://t.co/2fqmSDrvJC

— Jason YYC (@Jason___YYC) June 10, 2026

The White House now looks like Las Vegas. https://t.co/jOG2JWEJfb

— Dj Omega Mvp (@DjOmegaMVP) June 10, 2026

Ooooh those are the lights I’m seeing. I wondered. It’s so cheap and disgusting, makes the White House look like a traveling haunted house that sets up in a parking lot https://t.co/Mmx46Pedic

— barbie’s cuter sister (@but_1st_coffee_) June 10, 2026

Can we stop for a second to just acknowledge that there’s a UFC Arena outside the Vegas-whorehouse gold-plated-interior White House, on the destroyed South Lawn, near where the paved over Rose Garden used to be, next to the rubble of a demolished East Wing. https://t.co/sE4ESnCeDk

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— Andy Ostroy (@AndyOstroy) June 10, 2026