UFC Freedom 250 exit survey: Biggest winners and losers from a rollercoaster White House weekend

· Yahoo Sports

The UFC Freedom 250 event at the White House sent ripples through the worlds of sports and politics and culture, living up to the promise of a Rorschach test in which seemingly no two people saw the exact same thing. Now that the dust has settled, here's how the list of big winners and losers looks to this writer.

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This is a safe space so you can ahead and admit it: you didn't ever think Gaethje would get to call himself the one and only UFC lightweight champion.

There's no shame in being wrong about that. Since when do 37-year-old lightweights up and win the undisputed title after already having had that window of opportunity slammed on their heads twice before? It simply doesn't happen.

But we made a critical error in our assessment of Gaethje's late-career abilities. We forgot to take into account his unique ability to somehow, some way convince his opponents to engage in a Justin Gaethje kind of fight. You know the kind. Feet firmly planted. Haymakers whistling through the air. A battle of power and toughness and good ol' stubbornness. And you're simply not going to out-stubborn this anvil-headed mule. To finally win the title this way is a storybook ending for Gaethje — even though we all know it won't actually be the end.

The sport's most unlikely late-career champ? This one ranks up there.Anadolu via Getty Images

Remember that thing Muhammad Ali said about how it ain't bragging if it's true? Actually, maybe that was Will Rogers. Regardless, Topuria's first professional defeat was a good reminder that, when you don't back it up, all that confidence — the specific predictions and promises, the celebrations before the fight even happens — it just comes off as hubris.

Topuria made a series of tactical errors in this fight, and they seemed to all stem from the same core problem: he did not sufficiently respect Gaethje's abilities.

This might have been a necessary lesson for Topuria to learn, but he sure picked a hard way to learn it. To his credit, though, his post-fight reaction was a demonstration of class and humility worthy of a champion. Now let's see if he still feels like having a party the night before the next one.

A lot of the aesthetic criticism of this event centered around one word: tacky. The way UFC’s giant "claw" structure loomed on the Washington, D.C. horizon in the days prior to the event was a little too reminiscent of a huckster carnival operation, which played right into concerns that this would be the most crass night ever seen on the White House lawn.

No single entity did more to dispel that worry than the Marine Band. They classed this thing up big time. We're talking solid pros in uniform, cranking out a vast array of fighter entrance music. The sheer range alone was impressive. The execution was absolutely flawless. It's easy to forget what live music can do for an MMA event, mostly because it's something the UFC rarely seems to even consider. Here, it could not have possibly worked better.

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