When “Just a Fan” Doesn’t Cut It: Nate Bargatze, UFC Freedom 250 and Complicity
By LONNIE KING
I’ve never pretended to be a true MMA purist. I’m not the person who can list every contender in every division or who faithfully watches the undercard on a random Friday night. But I am a fan of the spectacle: the nights when the lights are bright, the walkout music hits, and everything feels larger than life.
When I was younger, that meant WrestleMania pay-per-views. I knew perfectly well they were scripted, that the outcomes were decided in a back room, and that the whole thing was more theater than sport.
It didn’t matter. The buildup, the entrances, the faux drama—it was fun. That same part of me loves big boxing matches and major MMA headliners. I’m the person who will happily tune in for “the fight everyone’s talking about,” even if I haven’t watched anything in months.
Most recently, I watched the Gina Carano versus Ronda Rousey match. Nothing shocked me. I wasn’t surprised when the whole thing was over in ten seconds, and I’m absolutely aware of Gina Carano’s right-wing leanings. I didn’t suddenly forget who she is just because the bell rang.
And yet, I still found some entertainment value in the event itself.
That’s the kind of fan I am: not blind to politics, but usually able to separate the individual fighter’s views from the spectacle of the fight.
And it’s not just fights. For years, I’ve also been a big fan of Nate Bargatze. I liked him before he blew up, before the crowded arenas and the huge tours. I appreciated that his stand-up stayed out of partisan food fights.
I figured he leaned a little, or a lot, more conservative than me. But, he came across like a rare comic who could be genuinely funny without making half the room feel like the enemy. In a culture where everything is a team jersey, he felt like neutral ground.
That’s exactly why his explanation for attending the UFC card at the White House—“I’m just a fan of MMA”—lands so badly for me.
It’s not simply that he went. It’s that he went to that event, for that president, and then acted as if his presence could somehow be separated from everything else going on around him. For someone whose whole brand is about being “for everyone,” that’s a deeply disappointing lapse in judgment.
A Thinly Veiled Party in Red Hats
Let’s be honest about what this event was: it was not “just” a fight card that happened to be held in a quirky location.
This was a choreographed spectacle on the White House lawn, staged for the president’s 80th birthday and wrapped in patriotic branding. It was marketed as historic, as a first, as something grand and symbolic.
The crowd was full of political allies, donors, loyalists, and carefully chosen celebrities. The whole production was designed to send a message about power, strength, and who belongs in the inner circle.
And then there was the moment.
After winning his fight, some heavyweight grabbed the microphone from a smiling Joe Rogan and shouted that Michelle Obama is a man, asking “Am I right, America?” to cheers from the crowd.
No pushback from Trump. No on-air challenge from Rogan. Just a crude conspiracy line regarding a former First Lady, delivered on the White House lawn, treated as one more piece of entertainment.
For me, that’s a breaking point. Watching people who have no business commenting on anyone’s body or appearance use a Black woman (and a former First Lady) as a punchline is appalling enough on its own. Seeing a major platform hand them the mic and beam that moment out as entertainment is even worse.
And beyond that, seeing celebrities I had previously admired lend their presence to such appalling conduct sickened me.
At that point, it stops being an ordinary sporting event featuring some problematic people. The ugliness isn’t incidental; it’s baked in. It’s a feature, not a bug.
So, when I see someone like Nate Bargatze, someone I genuinely admired, choose to be in that audience, smiling in photos inside the White House, and later fall back on “I’m just a fan of MMA,” I don’t hear neutrality.
I hear, “All of this was acceptable enough to me that I showed up anyway.”
Why “I’m Just a Fan” Fails as a Defense
In the fallout, when celebrities and public figures who attended this event are questioned about why they were there, some of them retreat to a familiar line: “I’m just a fan of the sport.” Nate’s version of that is that he went because he loves MMA, not because he supports any politician.
On the surface, it sounds reasonable. Sports are supposed to be a break from politics, right?
But at an event like this, “just a fan” doesn’t hold up—especially coming from someone as media-savvy as Nate. Here’s why.
First of all, intent doesn’t erase impact. When someone says “I’m just a fan,” what they’re really talking about is their intent.
They’re telling you they showed up to enjoy the fights, not to make a political statement. But that’s only half the story. The other half is the impact of their presence. And when that impact includes using your attendance as tacit endorsement of their agenda, it’s a problem.
If you are a high-profile person—an entertainer, an influencer, a recognizable face—showing up to a carefully staged event is a public act. Cameras find you. Photos circulate. You become part of the visual language of the night.
Your presence helps normalize the event and everything that happens within it. You may not have meant to send a message, but you did.
Nate has built an enormous audience on the image of being safe, kind, and “for the whole family.” When that guy shows up at a White House event where a fighter can dehumanize Michelle Obama into a punchline, his presence doesn’t sit in some private, apolitical bubble. His “nice guy” image becomes part of the PR gloss on the evening.
Next, there is no neutral seat in a rigged setting. At a normal card in a normal arena, you can make a case that you’re just a spectator. The event isn’t built around a single political figure; it’s built around the fights.
You might still have to wrestle with how you feel about certain individuals, but the setting itself isn’t broadcasting an obvious political agenda. But a White House event celebrating and hosted by a sitting president definitely comes with an agenda.
When the Setting is the Story
At this event, the setting was the message. The White House lawn. The presidential birthday framing. The handpicked guest list. The cameras panning to the “big names” in the crowd. This wasn’t politics lurking in the background; it was politics on the marquee.
When a fighter can stand in that space and shout a demeaning conspiracy about Michelle Obama, and the show just rolls on, there is no neutral ground. You don’t escape the message by focusing really hard on the jabs and takedowns.
Sitting in that audience and smiling for the cameras is participating in the message, whether you speak a single word about politics or not.
Nate is not some anonymous guy in the cheap seats. He knows what it means to be seen and to be used as part of a narrative. Pretending he could be “just a fan” in that room is either naïve in the extreme, willfully blind or flat-out disingenuous.
“Just a fan” is a luxury you can fall back on when the stakes of the event don’t land on your own body or community. If you’re not the target of the joke, the policy, or the conspiracy theory, it’s easier to shrug and say, “I’m only here for the fights.”
But if you’re a woman hearing the same tired, degrading rumor about Michelle Obama—someone who has already been a lightning rod for racist and sexist attacks for years—it doesn’t feel neutral.
If you’re included in a community that’s regularly treated as a punchline or a threat in that political ecosystem, it doesn’t feel neutral. It feels like your humanity is being turned into set dressing.
When someone like Nate, whose work I once saw as a refuge from all that, chooses to be comfortable in that environment and then shrugs it off with “I’m just a fan,” what I hear is: “This doesn’t hurt me enough to matter.”
The Spectacle Lover Who Said No
This is where my own relationship to spectacle matters.
I am exactly the sort of viewer this event was designed to tempt: not a scholar of every fight camp, but someone who genuinely enjoys a big, over-the-top show.
The White House as an arena? The pomp, the pageantry, the production values cranked to eleven? On paper, that’s exactly the kind of ridiculousness I normally eat up.
But sometimes the packaging is so obviously political, so proudly mean-spirited, that choosing to watch isn’t neutral anymore.
I could see from a mile away that this was a thinly veiled MAGA party. The fights were real, but they were arranged on a stage built for the president’s image and his base’s thrill.
I knew that if I tuned in, even if just out of curiosity, my view would become one more number used to brag about how huge and “historic” the night was. One more little unit of validation that the strategy worked.
So, I didn’t watch.
That doesn’t make me ethically or morally superior. It just means I refused to pretend I didn’t see what was right in front of me. I chose not to exchange an evening of spectacle for the feeling that I’d helped cheer along a show built on cruelty and power worship.
And it’s exactly because I also loved Nate’s work, and because we possibly share that love of MMA as a spectacle, that his decision to show up—and then to hide behind “I’m just a fan”—stings so much. We were watching the same trailer and somehow drew opposite conclusions about what it meant.
Fandom Is a Relationship, Not a Blank Check
For me, this isn’t only about fighters or politicians. It’s about the entertainers and public figures who chose to be there. They’re people whose work I’ve loved, who’ve branded themselves as “apolitical,” “family friendly,” or “for everyone.”
So, I can’t give this a pass.
If you are savvy enough to manage a huge career, you are savvy enough to know what it means to attend an event like this. You know what the cameras are there to capture. You know how the photos will look.
You know what it signals when you laugh and pose in a room where a fighter can call Michelle Obama a man on the White House lawn and be rewarded with cheers.
When you choose to be part of that, you are telling me something about your judgment and your familiarity with the environment around you. When you later shrug and say, “I’m just a fan,” you’re telling me something about how seriously you take the impact of your choices.
I don’t believe in chasing people off the internet or demanding that every public figure perfectly match my beliefs. But I also don’t owe anyone my money, my attention, or my admiration.
Fandom is not blind loyalty; it’s a relationship. It depends on some level of trust.
I trusted Nate to stay out of the political mud, not because I thought he agreed with me on everything, but because he said he didn’t want to use his platform that way. Seeing him lend his presence to this particular spectacle and then wave it away with “I’m just a fan of MMA” broke that trust.
When “Just a Fan” Isn’t Enough
In the end, this is the line I’ve drawn for myself:
I’m still a fan of big fights and ridiculous productions. I still enjoy the rush of a main event walkout and the frenzy of a ten-second knockout. I can even handle knowing that some of the people involved hold views I dislike. (It may actually influence who I root for.)
None of that has changed.
What has changed is my willingness to pretend that context doesn’t matter, especially when it comes to people whose work I’ve supported for years.
When an event is transparently built to glorify a political project that thrives on cruelty, conspiracy, and division, “I’m just a fan” stops being a harmless explanation. It becomes a way of looking away. It becomes complicity dressed up as innocence.
I can’t make that choice for anyone else. But I can make it for myself. And for me, when the spectacle starts serving that kind of story, and when people I’ve admired choose to be part of it, being “just a fan” simply doesn’t cut it anymore.
Grace and grit to you! – LK
This is SO good, I've gotta share it!
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Randomly Rudimentary Life Stuff 
When “Just a Fan” Doesn’t Cut It: Nate Bargatze, UFC Freedom 250 and Complicity
By LONNIE KING
I’ve never pretended to be a true MMA purist. I’m not the person who can list every contender in every division or who faithfully watches the undercard on a random Friday night. But I am a fan of the spectacle: the nights when the lights are bright, the walkout music hits, and everything feels larger than life.
When I was younger, that meant WrestleMania pay-per-views. I knew perfectly well they were scripted, that the outcomes were decided in a back room, and that the whole thing was more theater than sport.
It didn’t matter. The buildup, the entrances, the faux drama—it was fun. That same part of me loves big boxing matches and major MMA headliners. I’m the person who will happily tune in for “the fight everyone’s talking about,” even if I haven’t watched anything in months.
Most recently, I watched the Gina Carano versus Ronda Rousey match. Nothing shocked me. I wasn’t surprised when the whole thing was over in ten seconds, and I’m absolutely aware of Gina Carano’s right-wing leanings. I didn’t suddenly forget who she is just because the bell rang.
And yet, I still found some entertainment value in the event itself.
That’s the kind of fan I am: not blind to politics, but usually able to separate the individual fighter’s views from the spectacle of the fight.
And it’s not just fights. For years, I’ve also been a big fan of Nate Bargatze. I liked him before he blew up, before the crowded arenas and the huge tours. I appreciated that his stand-up stayed out of partisan food fights.
I figured he leaned a little, or a lot, more conservative than me. But, he came across like a rare comic who could be genuinely funny without making half the room feel like the enemy. In a culture where everything is a team jersey, he felt like neutral ground.
That’s exactly why his explanation for attending the UFC card at the White House—“I’m just a fan of MMA”—lands so badly for me.
It’s not simply that he went. It’s that he went to that event, for that president, and then acted as if his presence could somehow be separated from everything else going on around him. For someone whose whole brand is about being “for everyone,” that’s a deeply disappointing lapse in judgment.
A Thinly Veiled Party in Red Hats
Let’s be honest about what this event was: it was not “just” a fight card that happened to be held in a quirky location.
This was a choreographed spectacle on the White House lawn, staged for the president’s 80th birthday and wrapped in patriotic branding. It was marketed as historic, as a first, as something grand and symbolic.
The crowd was full of political allies, donors, loyalists, and carefully chosen celebrities. The whole production was designed to send a message about power, strength, and who belongs in the inner circle.
And then there was the moment.
After winning his fight, some heavyweight grabbed the microphone from a smiling Joe Rogan and shouted that Michelle Obama is a man, asking “Am I right, America?” to cheers from the crowd.
No pushback from Trump. No on-air challenge from Rogan. Just a crude conspiracy line regarding a former First Lady, delivered on the White House lawn, treated as one more piece of entertainment.
For me, that’s a breaking point. Watching people who have no business commenting on anyone’s body or appearance use a Black woman (and a former First Lady) as a punchline is appalling enough on its own. Seeing a major platform hand them the mic and beam that moment out as entertainment is even worse.
And beyond that, seeing celebrities I had previously admired lend their presence to such appalling conduct sickened me.
At that point, it stops being an ordinary sporting event featuring some problematic people. The ugliness isn’t incidental; it’s baked in. It’s a feature, not a bug.
So, when I see someone like Nate Bargatze, someone I genuinely admired, choose to be in that audience, smiling in photos inside the White House, and later fall back on “I’m just a fan of MMA,” I don’t hear neutrality.
I hear, “All of this was acceptable enough to me that I showed up anyway.”
Why “I’m Just a Fan” Fails as a Defense
In the fallout, when celebrities and public figures who attended this event are questioned about why they were there, some of them retreat to a familiar line: “I’m just a fan of the sport.” Nate’s version of that is that he went because he loves MMA, not because he supports any politician.
On the surface, it sounds reasonable. Sports are supposed to be a break from politics, right?
But at an event like this, “just a fan” doesn’t hold up—especially coming from someone as media-savvy as Nate. Here’s why.
First of all, intent doesn’t erase impact. When someone says “I’m just a fan,” what they’re really talking about is their intent.
They’re telling you they showed up to enjoy the fights, not to make a political statement. But that’s only half the story. The other half is the impact of their presence. And when that impact includes using your attendance as tacit endorsement of their agenda, it’s a problem.
If you are a high-profile person—an entertainer, an influencer, a recognizable face—showing up to a carefully staged event is a public act. Cameras find you. Photos circulate. You become part of the visual language of the night.
Your presence helps normalize the event and everything that happens within it. You may not have meant to send a message, but you did.
Nate has built an enormous audience on the image of being safe, kind, and “for the whole family.” When that guy shows up at a White House event where a fighter can dehumanize Michelle Obama into a punchline, his presence doesn’t sit in some private, apolitical bubble. His “nice guy” image becomes part of the PR gloss on the evening.
Next, there is no neutral seat in a rigged setting. At a normal card in a normal arena, you can make a case that you’re just a spectator. The event isn’t built around a single political figure; it’s built around the fights.
You might still have to wrestle with how you feel about certain individuals, but the setting itself isn’t broadcasting an obvious political agenda. But a White House event celebrating and hosted by a sitting president definitely comes with an agenda.
When the Setting is the Story
At this event, the setting was the message. The White House lawn. The presidential birthday framing. The handpicked guest list. The cameras panning to the “big names” in the crowd. This wasn’t politics lurking in the background; it was politics on the marquee.
When a fighter can stand in that space and shout a demeaning conspiracy about Michelle Obama, and the show just rolls on, there is no neutral ground. You don’t escape the message by focusing really hard on the jabs and takedowns.
Sitting in that audience and smiling for the cameras is participating in the message, whether you speak a single word about politics or not.
Nate is not some anonymous guy in the cheap seats. He knows what it means to be seen and to be used as part of a narrative. Pretending he could be “just a fan” in that room is either naïve in the extreme, willfully blind or flat-out disingenuous.
“Just a fan” is a luxury you can fall back on when the stakes of the event don’t land on your own body or community. If you’re not the target of the joke, the policy, or the conspiracy theory, it’s easier to shrug and say, “I’m only here for the fights.”
But if you’re a woman hearing the same tired, degrading rumor about Michelle Obama—someone who has already been a lightning rod for racist and sexist attacks for years—it doesn’t feel neutral.
If you’re included in a community that’s regularly treated as a punchline or a threat in that political ecosystem, it doesn’t feel neutral. It feels like your humanity is being turned into set dressing.
When someone like Nate, whose work I once saw as a refuge from all that, chooses to be comfortable in that environment and then shrugs it off with “I’m just a fan,” what I hear is: “This doesn’t hurt me enough to matter.”
The Spectacle Lover Who Said No
This is where my own relationship to spectacle matters.
I am exactly the sort of viewer this event was designed to tempt: not a scholar of every fight camp, but someone who genuinely enjoys a big, over-the-top show.
The White House as an arena? The pomp, the pageantry, the production values cranked to eleven? On paper, that’s exactly the kind of ridiculousness I normally eat up.
But sometimes the packaging is so obviously political, so proudly mean-spirited, that choosing to watch isn’t neutral anymore.
I could see from a mile away that this was a thinly veiled MAGA party. The fights were real, but they were arranged on a stage built for the president’s image and his base’s thrill.
I knew that if I tuned in, even if just out of curiosity, my view would become one more number used to brag about how huge and “historic” the night was. One more little unit of validation that the strategy worked.
So, I didn’t watch.
That doesn’t make me ethically or morally superior. It just means I refused to pretend I didn’t see what was right in front of me. I chose not to exchange an evening of spectacle for the feeling that I’d helped cheer along a show built on cruelty and power worship.
And it’s exactly because I also loved Nate’s work, and because we possibly share that love of MMA as a spectacle, that his decision to show up—and then to hide behind “I’m just a fan”—stings so much. We were watching the same trailer and somehow drew opposite conclusions about what it meant.
Fandom Is a Relationship, Not a Blank Check
For me, this isn’t only about fighters or politicians. It’s about the entertainers and public figures who chose to be there. They’re people whose work I’ve loved, who’ve branded themselves as “apolitical,” “family friendly,” or “for everyone.”
So, I can’t give this a pass.
If you are savvy enough to manage a huge career, you are savvy enough to know what it means to attend an event like this. You know what the cameras are there to capture. You know how the photos will look.
You know what it signals when you laugh and pose in a room where a fighter can call Michelle Obama a man on the White House lawn and be rewarded with cheers.
When you choose to be part of that, you are telling me something about your judgment and your familiarity with the environment around you. When you later shrug and say, “I’m just a fan,” you’re telling me something about how seriously you take the impact of your choices.
I don’t believe in chasing people off the internet or demanding that every public figure perfectly match my beliefs. But I also don’t owe anyone my money, my attention, or my admiration.
Fandom is not blind loyalty; it’s a relationship. It depends on some level of trust.
I trusted Nate to stay out of the political mud, not because I thought he agreed with me on everything, but because he said he didn’t want to use his platform that way. Seeing him lend his presence to this particular spectacle and then wave it away with “I’m just a fan of MMA” broke that trust.
When “Just a Fan” Isn’t Enough
In the end, this is the line I’ve drawn for myself:
I’m still a fan of big fights and ridiculous productions. I still enjoy the rush of a main event walkout and the frenzy of a ten-second knockout. I can even handle knowing that some of the people involved hold views I dislike. (It may actually influence who I root for.)
None of that has changed.
What has changed is my willingness to pretend that context doesn’t matter, especially when it comes to people whose work I’ve supported for years.
When an event is transparently built to glorify a political project that thrives on cruelty, conspiracy, and division, “I’m just a fan” stops being a harmless explanation. It becomes a way of looking away. It becomes complicity dressed up as innocence.
I can’t make that choice for anyone else. But I can make it for myself. And for me, when the spectacle starts serving that kind of story, and when people I’ve admired choose to be part of it, being “just a fan” simply doesn’t cut it anymore.
Grace and grit to you! – LK
This is SO good, I've gotta share it!
Related