President Donald Trump’s reputation inside a UFC arena is a far cry from the one in the political arena, or so we thought. We have seen him walking out to UFC events with CEO Dana White, with Kid Rock’s ‘American Bada–‘ blaring over the cheering crowd. His entrances would have you believe he was the biggest fan favorite of the night, but Joe Rogan once gave that assumption a harsh reality check.

Rogan remembers things a little differently when it comes to how fans actually respond to Trump inside an arena. The contrast has resurfaced after White made an appearance in a recent interview with Stephen A. Smith, and his comments contradicted a six-year-old clip from The Joe Rogan Experience that began circulating again on social media.

Dana White reveals why Donald Trump attends UFC events

Speaking to Smith, White explained that, except for Fox, every channel is criticizing Trump. He suggested that such days motivate the President to visit a UFC event. “There have to be those days where you wake up, and you’re just like, what am I doing? Am I doing the right thing and all this stuff? And I think that every time if he ever felt that way, he would come to a UFC event and he would walk out of that tunnel,” White said.

He further added that people would fan-boy over his presence. “I’m telling you in all the years that I’ve been in the fight business, I’ve never seen anything like it. We could be in New York City, we could be in Portland, Oregon, we could have been, you name it, and that is how our base reacted to Trump,” Dana White added. He further claimed that the love from people would recharge Donald Trump and motivate him to keep moving forward.

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“I think that’s sort of his relationship that he’s had with the UFC,” White concluded in the video. Rogan, however, doesn’t have the same memory of Trump’s presence at a UFC event.

Back in November 2019, on JRE episode #1378, featuring Greg Fitzsimmons, Rogan revealed how the public reacted to Trump’s arrival at an old UFC event. “They booed the f—k out of him at the UFC,” Rogan said bluntly.

When Fitzsimmons claimed he heard people cheered, Joe Rogan clarified. “I took my f—king headphones off just to listen, and it was ‘booo.’ Really, man, 18,000 people go booo.” While he acknowledged that a very tiny number of people may have cheered, the majority of the public didn’t want Donald Trump at the venue. “If you had to bet your money on what was the greater percentage? Was it boos or claps? It was f—king boos.”

But this was Rogan six years ago. Does his claim stand true today? 

Donald Trump has managed to make fans out of his critics

While Rogan’s claim back in 2019 may have held some truth at the time, the landscape has changed dramatically since then. For starters, Rogan had previously refused to host Donald Trump on The Joe Rogan Experience. However, ahead of the 2024 presidential election, he reversed that stance and welcomed Trump onto his podcast, signaling a noticeable shift in his position.

Moreover, if public sentiment toward Trump was as negative as it once appeared, it’s hard to explain why he entered the 2024 election as the leading favorite—and ultimately went on to win. While Trump may have been booed at UFC events in 2019, today’s crowds tell a very different story. UFC fans now openly embrace him, as seen at UFC 309, where Trump received thunderous cheers for his entrance shortly after his election victory.

Reacting to the moment from the commentary desk, Rogan remarked, “It’s so loud. It’s always loud when he comes here, but now that he’s the President again, oh my god.” That reaction hardly aligns with the idea of a hostile crowd. It appears that since 2019, Donald Trump has not only won over the voting public (again) but also the UFC fans.