PALM BEACH, Fla. (AP) — President-elect Donald Trump will be at the UFC heavyweight championship match Saturday night at Madison Square Garden, combining two things close to his heart: fierce fighting in the Octagon and New York City.

After a year’s delay, Stipe Miocic gets his chance at a third heavyweight championship as he battles the tide champion Jon Jones at UFC309.

Trump has been a longtime UFC enthusiast and frequent participant in major fights. He made promoting hyper-masculine tones a signature from his last, successful campaign for the White House – in which he wanted to further widen the gap between the two parties male voters between himself and his Democratic opponent, vice president Kamala Harris.

Trump and his core supporters embraced alpha male terms and often punctuated them with vulgar and derogatory language.

During his campaign, Trump regularly appeared on podcasts, on gaming platforms and with key supporters who described voting for Trump as a way to demonstrate true masculinity. Trump also spent three hours recording a podcast with Joe Rogan, who himself has spoken about hypermasculinity. Harris failed to act similarly with Rogan, citing scheduling conflicts.

A return to Madison Square Garden means revisiting the place where a comedian caused a stir at a Trump rally last month by comparing Puerto Rico to a “floating island of trash.” Still, Trump continues to enjoy visits to New York, where he lived for decades before moving to his Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida.

Trump boarded his plane for the flight to New York Robert F. Kennedy Jr., his choice to lead the Department of Health and Human Services after his new administration begins on January 20.

Except for a day out to Washington a nearly two-hour meeting with the president this week Joe Bidenand separately addressing House Republicans, Trump has been spending his time ever since Election Day victory at Mar-a-Lago. The club has organized galas and conservative events throughout the week.

Trump has had a close relationship with UFC president Dana White for more than two decades.

White hosted a UFC fight in 2001 at Trump Taj Mahal, a former casino hotel in Atlantic City, New Jersey, and Trump has regularly attended UFC matches since then — including during his 2024 campaign. Trump has recently appeared at celebrity fights entouragesincluding White, musician Kid Rock and former Fox News Channel host Tucker Carlson.

In 2018, during Trump’s first term, he and White starred in a UFC video that referred to the then-president as the “Combatant In Chief.”

As Trump has tightened his grip on the national Republican Party over the past nearly a decade, White’s personal political profile has grown exponentially. White spoke at the 2016 and 2020 Republican conventions, and when the company gathered in Milwaukee last July. He also addressed the crowd at Trump’s victory party in Florida in the early morning hours after Election Day.

“This is what happens when the machine comes after you,” White said at the time. “What you’ve seen over the years, this is what it looks like: I couldn’t stop him. He keeps moving forward. He doesn’t give up.”