President Trump said on Friday that construction of the UFC arena on the South Lawn of the White House is due to begin this week.The White House is set to play host to UFC Freedom 250 on June 14, Trump's birthday, with a temporary arena set-up for what Dana White has said will be 4,300 private attendees most of which being service members. The Ellipse will play host to a public watch party due to host approximately 85,000.Those numbers were slightly exaggerated when Trump spoke to reporters about the event on Friday. During which, he said that construction of the arena was due to begin over the next week."The arena, they're going to start building [the arena] over the next week. It's right here, it will be about 5,000 seats. They'll have 100,000 people down at the Ellipse, and it's all gonna be free."Freedom 250 has been designated a SEAR 1 event by Homeland Security, placing it at the same federal security requirements as the Super Bowl, although it has yet to be determined which agencies will be handling security.The event itself will be headlined by Ilia Topuria versus Justin Gaethje for the Undisputed Lightweight Championship, and in the co-main event Alex Pereira will be fighting Ciryl Gane for the Interim Heavyweight Championship.
