Everyone is entitled to their opinion.
The argument being made here is that they forced the salute to honor the fighters (not the MoH) by having MoH recipients there (this goal post has shifted a few times). You can look at this through a political lens and end up on this thought plane, I guess, but the execution of these walkouts defeats that same thought process.
They didn't have MoH recipients with each fighter, and when there wasn't a MoH recipient there, there were no salutes.
If the purpose was to salute the fighters, they'd have filled every moment of every walkout with a MoH recipient, then they'd have not included the text on the screens about them, which becomes visible at the :02 mark of the quoted video. The announcers wouldn't have announced the MoH recipients. They honored the recipients where necessary, and didn't when they weren't there. It's very simple.
There's another, parallel, thought process I keep seeing that's just as, if not MORE stupid. Somehow, there are people that believe each of these MoH recipients were forced into this to (once again) side-insert these salutes into the UFC fight. If you, for a single second, think that you're forcing these guys to do something they don't want to do, you know nothing about them. Some of these dudes notoriously and publicly called out the US and the Government for poor leadership during the GWOT, in some cases hampering the award of their Medals of Honor. They're adults, and CHOSE to be there.
For the real value of this...
A LOT of people watched this. From those that wanted to watch it to those that didn't want to but did anyway to see what they could complain about. Simply, it doesn't really matter which, and I'll tell you why:
How many people might now know Ty Carter's name that didn't, or Earl Plumlee's? These people that set their lives aside for the lives of others.
I wanted to watch this event because I'm a fan of combat sports, so I did. I didn't know the MoH walkouts were a part of it. I didn't know they were going to basically turn it into a salute of service. But that was my takeaway. I'm glad I watched it. From the Marine Corps band and the Old Guard to the military in the seats and the First Responder tributes, the entire event was nothing but a tribute to those that serve with a side-piece UFC fight. It was awesome.
"Oh, that's cool, they're showing more people our MoH heroes and giving them the honor they deserve by saluting them and showing people their names."
The UFC is doing a very clever thing: they have given each fighter an honor guard that includes a medal of honor recipient, which means every service member must salute as the fighter walks past