Dana White usually praises the UFC production team but was irate after another celebrity was misidentified during the UFC 329 broadcast on Saturday.
Similar mistakes have happened in the past including at Sphere in Las Vegas when boxer Terence Crawford was shown on screen but the graphic identified him as famous rapper Kendrick Lamar. On Saturday night, Shakur Stevenson, who just inked a lucrative multi-fight deal to join Zuffa Boxing, was shown on the UFC 329 broadcast as Oklahoma City Thunder star Jalen Williams.
It’s safe to say White was not pleased.
“I tell you all the time my production team—we just did the White House—we built a f*cking arena on the South Lawn of the White House and it was the greatest f*cking thing in the world to be there live and to watch it on TV,” White said at the UFC 329 post-fight press conference. “I just paid Shakur Stevenson a shit load of money and for some reason we can’t figure the celebrity shit out. They put him up as a f*cking OKC NBA player! Are you f*cking kidding me?
“It’s absolutely crazy. We are the absolute worst to ever do the celebrity thing. When we put celebrities up, we are the worst.”
White said he was actually talking with members of the production team about the latest gaffe that happened at UFC 329 and apparently the discussion shifted towards who was actually the worst in sports in similar situations.
While other productions may slip up from time to time, White promised that the team at UFC has been notoriously bad at this particular job and it apparently isn’t getting any better.
White didn’t make any declarations about changes he might try to implement within his own staff to prevent the same thing from happening again but for now he has no problem saying the UFC production team is the absolute worst dealing with that very specific issue.
“I just had a debate in the back with my team while I was screaming at everybody and they said ‘no, soccer’s worse,’” White revealed. “Soccer shows the people and they don’t put up any graphics.
“Oh no. We put up f*cking graphics and put the wrong guy’s name on it. We’re the worst ever to f*cking do it.”
Stevenson himself later reacted to the mistake and White’s reaction:
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