John Oliver mocks UFC president ‘Dumps McFightman’

After Dana White trademarked Last Week Today’s “UF-Sea” idea, the comedy-news show did a little diving into the history of the UFC’s branding ideas.

For better or worse, Dana White appears to have picked a fight with John Oliver and Last Week Tonight. The comedy-news show mocked the UFC’s “Fight Island” idea in a recent episode looking at the economics of sports during the COVID-19 pandemic. White lambasted what he called “selective facts” used by Oliver in the segment, but also took the show’s suggested “UF-Sea” idea and trademarked it.

In a recent follow-up episode, Oliver couldn’t help but take a few more jabs at the UFC president and even offered some further suggestions for other rebranding ideas—including re-branding White himself.

“Honestly, even the name Dana White could use a 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.”

Oliver then took White to task for his own use of “selective facts” and dived a bit deeper into the UFC’s admittedly strange history of trademarks. Aside from things like the UFC hot dog brander, or various pieces of octagon themed jewelry, who could forget the infamous “chicken monster” or whatever the hell “Ultimate Sound” was supposed to be.

If this is a fight Dana White is going to keep picking, Last Week Tonight will likely find themselves with a near endless supply of material from MMA’s strange subcultures and the UFC’s own history of weird and questionable business practices. Still, they say no publicity is bad publicity, right?