Dana White Credit: UFC
By Drew Lerner on

Dana White doesn’t limit his media criticism to those outside the UFC’s purview. On Saturday night, during his press conference following UFC 329, White took aim at his own broadcast team for an embarrassing flub.

At one point in Saturday’s telecast, the UFC broadcast team started up the time-honored tradition of showing a montage of celebrities attending the night’s fights. There was a who’s who of superstars that flocked to Las Vegas to bear witness to Connor McGregor’s return to the octagon. Mike Tyson, Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, and Noel Gallagher were all in attendance, just to name a few.

Also in attendance was American boxer Shakur Stevenson. Stevenson is a world title holder in four weight classes and signed with Zuffa Boxing, the boxing promotion founded by White and owned by UFC parent company TKO, last week. Naturally, White would have liked to see Stevenson receive some nice promotion during UFC 329, and he was seated right among the VIPs and in clear camera view for all to see. The only problem was when Stevenson was shown on the broadcast, the UFC production team didn’t realize it was the accomplished boxer.

As you can see, Stevenson was mistaken for Oklahoma City Thunder star Jalen Williams during the UFC 329 telecast.

It’s certainly not the first time UFC has made a mistake like this. Perhaps most infamously, UFC mistook world champion boxer Terence Crawford for rapper Kendrick Lamar during UFC 306 in 2024.

Suffice it to say, Dana White was not happy with the blunder, and let his broadcast team know about it during his post-card press conference.

“I just paid Shakur Stevenson a sh*tload of money, and for some reason we can’t figure this celebrity sh*t out,” White decried. “They put him up as a f*cking OKC NBA player. Are you f*cking kidding me? I mean, it’s just absolutely crazy. We are the absolute worst to ever do the celebrity thing. When we put celebrities up, we are the worst. I just had this f*cking debate in the back with my guys while I was screaming at everybody back there and they said, ‘No, soccer’s worse. 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 win. We’re the worst EVER to f*cking do it.”

Credit where credit is due, it seems like White is going to hold his team accountable. At this point, though, it’d almost be funnier if UFC continued mistaking people’s identities for the bit.

About Drew Lerner

Drew Lerner is a staff writer for Awful Announcing and an aspiring cable subscriber. He previously covered sports media for Sports Media Watch. Future beat writer for the Oasis reunion tour.

View all posts by Drew Lerner