Dana White recently erupted at the UFC 329 post-fight press conference over another celebrity misidentification, this time confusing newly signed Zuffa Boxing fighter Shakur Stevenson with NBA player Jalen Williams on the broadcast.
The UFC president declared his production team “the worst ever” at the job despite their recent run of major successes.
The mistake happened Saturday when Stevenson, who just signed a multi-fight deal with Zuffa Boxing, was shown on the UFC 329 broadcast under the name of the Oklahoma City Thunder star. It is not the first time the promotion has botched a graphic, and White made clear he has run out of patience.
Speaking at the post-fight press conference, White contrasted the gaffe with the production team’s recent work building an arena on the South Lawn of the White House.
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. “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?
He did not stop there, framing the error as a recurring failure rather than a one-off.
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.
A Familiar Problem
White pointed to a previous slip at Sphere in Las Vegas, where boxer Terence Crawford was shown on screen with a graphic identifying him as rapper Kendrick Lamar. He said he had been arguing with his team backstage over which sport handles the issue worst.
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.
White stopped short of announcing any changes to prevent the mistake from happening again. Stevenson himself weighed in afterward, reacting to both the error and White’s rant on social media.
For more from the UFC 329 aftermath, see Dana White’s reaction to Conor McGregor’s UFC 329 injury.
