#Dana White-John Oliver feud escalates into onesies and mugs

Dana White’s lack of originality won’t help him win a war of words.

After the UFC President trademarked “UFSea” — a term jokingly created by John Oliver, in reference to White’s COVID-19-inspired plan to hold fights on an island — the HBO host escalated his verbal assault on White during the May 31 episode of “Last Week Tonight.”

Oliver had previously criticized White — who admitted he’d stolen Oliver’s “UFSea” label — for unsafely and unnecessarily holding events in the midst of a pandemic.

“I’m not remotely mad here. I want you to use that name. In fact, I think you should let us rename all of your events, because frankly, you’re not very good at it,” Oliver said. “Take UFC 249, it’s just your logo plus a number. Where’s the pizzaz there? How about this, UFC: Knuckle Opera? Or Dust Up at the Beef Factory? Or Large Hamboy Collider? It’s better, right? Who doesn’t want to see some hamboys collide right now? Honestly, even the name Dana White could use little punch up. It doesn’t sound like the head of the Ultimate Fighting Championship, it sounds like the third-best real estate agent in Sacramento or a video where a white woman calls the cops on a black family for smiling too hard.

“I am not mad at Tug Slabmeat for stealing our idea for ‘UFSea.‘ We may not even be the first person he stole them from. He only filed for the ‘Fight Island’ trademark a week after a TMZ reporter suggested to him he call it that.”

White was bothered by Oliver’s initial criticism of UFC fights continuing, which the former claims was improperly portrayed as a use of “selective facts.”

“The only thing that he’s done here that annoyed me was accusing us of using ‘selective facts,’ because facts are to me what other peoples’ ideas are to Dana White: something I’m very passionate about,” Oliver said. “What apparently upset him was that in our piece we pointed out that three people, a UFC fighter and his two cornermen, all tested positive for coronavirus before a recent event, underscoring the fact that it seems impossible to return to sports completely without risk right now. White responded on Twitter to say ‘we had three events, not one,’ which is completely irrelevant, and that those three positives came from 1,100 tests, which does initially seem to minimize it – until you learn that all those tests were administered to just 300 people. Basically, Dana was quoting a larger number to make the positive results look less significant, which seems like, I don’t know, a selective fact.”

Oliver, 43, then ridiculed White, 50, for UFC’s past trademarks, one of which — “You Will Submit” — is now being printed on merchandise for sale at a site set up by the HBO show.

“Honestly, I think Dana White’s just looking for a fight here. In fact, I’m almost certain that he is because he’s literally trademarked the phrase, ‘Dana White Lookin’ for a Fight.’ And as we learned by looking up his filing for the UFC, it’s just one of the many phrases that he’s trademarked in the past. There’s ‘Fight Library,’ which is excellent, ‘Chicken Monster,’ which is somehow even better, and ‘Baddest Motherf*cker,’ which I always assumed was owned by Samuel L. Jackson. However, interestingly, UFC’s filing for that cites only handful of potential uses, among them, toy figures and action figures, which just makes sense. It’s the perfect phrase to have on a child’s toy.

“But when we started looking deeper, we actually realized that there are a number of trademarks they’ve applied for and got and then let expire, my favorite of which is ‘You Will Submit,’ which they’ve trademarked for use on baby booties, fanny packs, and walking canes; because nothing says I’m going to beat you into submission like a baby with a cane wearing a fanny pack.

“Look, since Dana took something that we came up with, we’re going to return the favor. Guess who is now officially in the process of owning the trademark ‘You Will Submit’? I’ll give you a clue, it’s got two thumbs, it’s sheltering in a white void, and it’s about to sell this baby onesie, which you can find at tugslabmeatsbabypalace.com. Who is the ‘Baddest Motherf*cker’ now, Dana?”

With Fight Island slated to open on July 11, White was able to slip in a subtle nod to his beef with Oliver during a TMZ Sports interview on Friday: The UFC boss slyly sipped from a “Last Week Tonight” mug.