{"id":505587,"date":"2026-02-26T15:22:11","date_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:22:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/505587\/"},"modified":"2026-02-26T15:22:11","modified_gmt":"2026-02-26T15:22:11","slug":"is-ilia-topuria-too-hispanic-to-headline-the-ufc-white-house-card","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/505587\/","title":{"rendered":"Is Ilia Topuria \u2018too Hispanic\u2019 to headline the UFC White House card?"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">The UFC may be pivoting on their headliner plans for the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-white-house-2026-fight-card-start-time-full-results-dana-white-conor-mcgregor-cbs-mma\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">UFC White House card,<\/a> which was looking like it would feature Ilia Topuria vs. Justin Gaethje to unify the lightweight title.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">According to Team Topuria insider Alvaro Colmenero, there are concerns that the fight may not be \u2018American\u2019 enough \u2026 or a little too \u2018Hispanic\u2019 for an event celebrating the 250th birthday of the United States.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cAt this point, I can tell you &#8211; and this is information I\u2019ve been given &#8211; that there\u2019s no definitive confirmation that Topuria will be at the White House,\u201d Colmenero reported in a new video. \u201cIt would be ideal, but there\u2019s also a truth to this: we should never lose sight of the significance of the White House event.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cThe White House is being used to commemorate the 250th anniversary of the United States\u2019 independence, which should be on July 4th, but they moved it to June 14th to coincide with Donald Trump\u2019s 80th birthday. The White House has to be full of American flags.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">\u201cI don\u2019t know to what extent Trump\u2019s advisors will approve, when the whole fight card is presented and explained to Trump, of putting a fighter who is Spanish-Georgian \u2014 that is, Hispanic \u2014 in the main event, where there\u2019s a very high probability he\u2019ll knock out the American star.\u201d Colmenero continued. \u201cAnd yes, Justin Gaethje has a chance of winning. But this is a matter of probabilities, this is also a matter of advice and of working as positively as possible for American interests.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Colmenero added that International Fight Week in July was being considered as a back-up should the UFC decide to shift the fight back to a new date.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">UFC CEO Dana White has said he wasn\u2019t planning on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/ufc-news\/403614\/dana-white-says-ufc-white-house-event-wont-be-usa-vs-the-world\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">stacking the card with American fighters<\/a> to fit some American theme. But when it comes to the big match-ups we have no doubt there must be some consideration to what the Trump administration wants.<\/p>\n<p class=\"duet--article--dangerously-set-cms-markup duet--article--standard-paragraph _1nfb3k4i _16w9vov1 _16w9vov0 ls9zuh1\">Last month it would be crazy to suggest Topuria would be passed on as a headliner because he\u2019s \u2018Hispanic.\u2019 Then <a href=\"https:\/\/www.mmamania.com\/boxing\/421279\/jake-paul-calls-bad-bunny-fake-american-iced-brother-logan-mvp-amanda-serrano\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">the Super Bowl happened,<\/a> and you realize just how polarized things are right now.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The UFC may be pivoting on their headliner plans for the UFC White House card, which was looking&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":505588,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[570],"tags":[64,63,786,785,85,1396],"class_list":["post-505587","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-mma","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-fighting","tag-mma","tag-sports","tag-ufc-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505587","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=505587"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/505587\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/505588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=505587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=505587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=505587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}