MMA opinion: UFC Freedom 250 - Could it be any more of a disaster?

With the announcement of the UFC’s ‘Freedom 250’ card, the promotion aims to bring the sport to the masses on ‘Flag Day’, a celebration of American independence aligned with the adoption of the ‘stars and stripes’ as the country’s emblem. 

The card was announced on the UFC 326 broadcast and will feature a headline unification bout between the returning Ilia Topuria and interim champion Justin Gaethje, as well as Alex Pereira moving up to heavyweight for a shot at a title in a third weight class. 

A widespread outcry of confusion, disappointment and indifference has followed, with many feeling the card, originally described as a ‘full event’, has been dramatically oversold to them. 

Sports News Blitz’s Freddie Thomas-Neher offers his thoughts on the card.

Early excitement for UFC White House card

The afternoon after the White House card was announced amid a rather stale UFC 326, I found myself sitting opposite a friend who, despite being a UFC fan and previously braving the 6am bedtimes, had completely missed the boat for the announcement. 

I excitedly pulled the card up on my laptop and announced I’d read the fights off one-by-one, him looking forward, almost gleefully awaiting a familiar pair of names, but to no avail. 

Concluding my reading of the card, a fairly bored look occupied the seat opposite me. 

“There’s definitely no McGregor?” he asked with little interest, and was immediately rebuffed. 

“And there’s no Jon Jones?” he offered as his engagement to the conversation faltered again to an alarming degree. 

My informed rejection of the prospect of the two being involved in the card felt akin to telling someone their tires had been slashed, or I’d accidentally binned their favourite pair of jeans. 

But with the two major draws openly calling for a place at the event, why did the UFC not move the earth to book the two?

READ MORE: MMA news: Ilia Topuria vs Justin Gaethje, Alex Pereira vs Cyril Gane headline UFC Freedom 250

Lacking the big names 

Conor McGregor is undeniably still the biggest draw in MMA, despite his nearly five-year absence from the ring. 

McGregor was last seen in the Octagon in July 2021, where he headlined UFC 257 in a trilogy bout against Dustin Poirier, subsequently and famously snapping his ankle at the end of the first round and giving a post-fight interview for the ages. 

The Irishman was arguably responsible for elevating MMA from a mid-level attraction to a mainstream sport, notably headlining the first MMA card in New York in 2016. 

Controversy has surrounded McGregor since the infamous ‘there-was-no-check-ankle-snap’ incident, with many accusing him of steroid use to aid recovery and criticising his pulling out of a fight against Michael Chandler in 2024. 

UFC President Dana White was asked about the return of the ‘Notorious’ on Monday, saying a date for the former double champ’s return was ‘not even close’. 

White was also asked about the return of Jon Jones, who has since publicly requested his release from the promotion after being snubbed from the card.

“Never, ever, ever - which I told you guys 100,000 times - was Jon Jones ever even remotely in my mind to fight at the White House.”

‘Bones’ is frequently touted by White as the greatest MMA fighter of all time, but he had recently announced his retirement from the sport before rescinding it in order to train for the White House. 

Both fighters have held UFC championships in abundance and maintained their statuses as major draws for the promotion across a number of years, with effectively anyone with sense expecting one or both to make an appearance on the card. 

Jones’ theorised opponent, a heavyweight version of Alex Pereira, made the card. 

McGregor’s long-lost TUF opponent, Michael Chandler, made the card.

The promotion’s decision to exclude the two legends can be seen as understandable to a degree; the UFC have struggled with scheduling major cards in the past, and Jones infamously failed a drug test before UFC 200, majorly altering the main event. 

However, the behavioural issues of the two must be seen as irrelevant to a more base cause; fans were promised the greatest card of all time, and have been slapped with a barely above-average main card. 

McGregor and Jones’ difficulties to work with should have been put to one side, and the two should have been prioritised as the biggest double header the sport has seen. 

Jones wanted the fight desperately, as did McGregor, and the failure to book either of them will affect the public’s perspective on the self-proclaimed ‘historic’ event for years to come. 

Flawed headliner 

The main event is quite the fight, but makes absolutely zero sense in context. 

Lightweight phenom Ilia Topuria is slated to return to defend his belt at 155lbs after a hiatus to resolve personal issues, facing recently crowned interim champion Justin Gaethje. 

The undefeated Topuria should be fighting Arman Tsarukyan, riding a five-fight win streak while having already won a title eliminator, or a superfight against welterweight champion Islam Makhachev, but even that takes a backseat. 

The question beckons: why on earth have the UFC booked this as the main event, when the likelihood of it finishing with an American fighter drooling on the canvas is so high? 

Frankly, if Justin Gaethje beats Ilia Topuria, pigs will fly. 

The promotion has since admitted that the fight was not originally slated to headline, and a last-minute switch led to the clash finding its way to the top of the card. 

This is undeniably a risky move, as Gaethje is known for his brawling tendencies and Topuria for his timing and precision. 

Gaethje has previously stepped in at the major events before, leaving UFC 300 on a stretcher after being famously knocked cold in the last second of his BMF title fight with Max Holloway. 

‘The Highlight’ has also said that this run to the title is his last and intends on preserving his health through retirement if he fails to capture gold, but is riding a two-fight win streak with a hard-fought victory over Scouser Paddy Pimblett in his most recent bout. 

Topuria has never lost, has knocked his last three opponents cold (seeing Charles Oliveira like that will never leave me) and is gaining a reputation as something of a legend-killer. 

In short, good luck getting that moment of American pride as the lights come down. 

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Acceptance of mediocrity

How many UFC fans can claim to know, in any abundance of detail, who Kyle Daukaus is? Aiemann Zahabi? Steve Garcia? 

While the aforementioned trio may well be booked to give their opponents reasonable opposition, the everyday UFC fan will struggle to engage. 

Former All-American wrestler Bo Nickal will notably face Daukaus, who has returned to the promotion after being cut in 2022, winning his first two fights in the first round. 

Nickal’s inclusion epitomises the event's mediocrity. A three-time NCAA Division 1 champion, the Colorado native joined the UFC in 2022 after a two-fight stint on the Contender Series. 

Nickal was ‘fraud-checked’ (a colloquial term used in combat sports when a fighter’s hype is rather unceremoniously quelled) by Reinier de Ridder last May, being comprehensively deconstructed by knees to the body and knocked out in the second round. 

The wrestler has since bounced back by knocking out Rodolfo Bellato, but remains unranked by the promotion and a bit of an afterthought to most fans. 

Undeniably a good addition to a broader card, Nickal is the prototype American wrestler, and, given the nature of the White House card being one of national pride, his inclusion can be argued to make sense. 

But with just six fights on the card, an unranked middleweight bout between two wrestlers is a pretty unappealing prospect. 

The never-ending contradictions of Cyril Gane

‘Bon Gamin’ is slated to face Alex Pereira in the co-main event of the card, an interim title fight with ‘Poatan’ moving up from light heavyweight to attempt to capture gold in a third weight class. 

A bold move from Pereira, undeniably exciting, but the inclusion of Gane on the card, again for gold, gives weight to a worrying trend of favouritism from the UFC. 

Gane fouled Tom Aspinall at UFC 321, ending the main event and throwing an entire pay-per-view into disarray. 

Historically, he has been known to eye-poke fighters, and, with June’s event being the fifth time he will fight for UFC gold (he sits at 1-2-1, his only win against a lethargic Derrick Lewis for interim glory in 2021), Gane’s position must be called into question. 

To begin with, he gained the shot against Aspinall through a more-than-controversial decision against Alexander Volkov.

He arguably won the first round against Aspinall, but with the round never actually making it to the cards, the French kickboxer has realistically done very little of merit since a 2023 TKO over Sergei Spivac. 

Five title shots with just three wins between them (Volkov was proclaimed to have been “f*cked” by the judges by Dana White) paints a rather odd picture. 

The omission of Arman Tsarukyan from the lightweight title picture, who has even been removed from pound-for-pound rankings, is baffling. 

Controversy also mired the main event of UFC 325, with fans claiming Diego Lopes didn’t deserve a rematch against champion Alexander Volkanovski over Lerone Murphy, Aljamain Sterling, or Movsar Evloev. 

Gane’s booking represents a serious flaw in the UFC’s matchmaking of late; favouring specific fighters is horrifically detrimental to the quality of events, and the UFC’s claims to make the fights that fans want to see are becoming more of a gimmick than a fact. 

Fables and planning failures

The card was originally billed as a full-length event, with President Trump stating it would be attended by 20-25,000 on the White House’s South Lawn, and that it would be held on Independence Day, July 4. 

TKO CEO Ari Emanuel stated earlier this month that the event, which has been moved to June 14, would be attended by around 4,000 viewers, and no public tickets would be made available.

The promotion is also unable to have a specific athletic commission sanction the bouts, as the South Lawn is federal property and must self-sanction for the event to take place.

The UFC have also been tasked with the full restoration of the South Lawn after the event, with a Puck News article estimating the event’s cost to be in excess of $60 million. 

Mark Shapiro, TKO President, has also stated that the event is not expected to even sniff a profit, hoping that around 50% of expenses will be covered by new sponsorships and promotions. 

With the already widespread disappointment surrounding the card's booking, the promotion must also be wondering whether they’ve financially bitten off a bit more than they can, or want to chew. 

When will the UFC actually pull off the big card?

UFC 300 was a dramatic affair, highlighted by the aforementioned last-second knockout of Justin Gaethje, Alex Pereira’s quick dispatching of Jamahal Hill and … Bo Nickal again? 

Nickal fought as the opener on the main card, ahead of ex-champions including Jiri Prochazka and Aljamain Sterling, a questionable booking that drew the ire of fans.

However, like the Freedom 250 event, both UFC 300 and 200 have had main-event issues.

White had previously emphasised the grandeur of 2024’s marquee event, and the disappointment of a McGregor-less card was once again an issue, with Pereira’s star factor arguably paling in comparison. 

UFC 200 was a similar story, with Jon Jones pulling out of the main event after testing positive for banned substances, as well as the co-main event’s returning winner, Brock Lesnar, eventually having his result overturned. 

Mystery has surrounded a fight that was pulled from the upcoming card at the last minute, with a viral clip of UFC matchmakers allegedly finding out about the fallout on stage at the UFC 326 weigh-ins. 

While the fight has remained unnamed, the frustration on the face of UFC matchmaker Hunter Campbell tells a story and makes you wonder: if the fight had stayed on the card, would the bookings have made more sense?

Great events have come thick and fast for the UFC since the rise of Conor McGregor, but it does feel as if the promotion has rather consistently fallen short of expectations whenever a marquee event is announced. 

The Freedom 250 card is the latest in a long line of eye-rolls and disappointments whenever the UFC and White claim that an event will be truly great, making it feel as though, whenever the promotion makes a promise regarding bookings, there will always be a catch.

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