Rousey and Paul Mock UFC Over White House Viewership Numbers

Ronda Rousey and Jake Paul have taken jabs at the UFC and its president Dana White following the release of viewership figures for last week's UFC White House event. According to Paramount+, the event, dubbed UFC 250 Freedom, drew approximately 7 million viewers in the United States. However, that number was significantly lower than the audience Rousey attracted for her 15-second fight against Gina Carano on Netflix, which averaged 9.3 million US viewers with a peak of 11.6 million.

Jake Paul, who co-founded the MMA promotion MVP with Nakisa Bidarian, reacted on X (formerly Twitter) by stating that as a boxing promoter, he feels like the biggest MMA promoter today. Paul has a history of publicly mocking Dana White. The MVP-promoted Rousey vs Carano event was framed as a "takeover" of MMA by the boxer-turned-promoter.

Rousey, who chose to fight on an MVP card instead of the UFC due to pay disputes, directed her comments at UFC chief business officer Hunter Campbell. She posted on social media, "Lmao! Kiss my ass, Hunter Campbell."

The UFC White House event, held on the south lawn of US President Donald Trump's residence, featured two title fights. Paramount reported an average of 8.2 million viewers across both the US and Latin America, with 17 million people watching at least one minute in those regions, including 15.3 million in the US. The figures were verified by Nielsen and Adobe Analytics. In contrast, Netflix only released US viewership numbers for the Rousey fight and did not state whether they were independently verified.

Paramount hinted that the UFC might release additional global figures for the White House event. The main event saw American Justin Gaethje, a Trump supporter, upset Ilia Topuria to win the UFC lightweight title for the first time, coinciding with his 80th birthday.