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Morning Report: John Oliver reacts to Dana White trademarking ‘UFSea’

June 01, 2020
Photograph by Lloyd Bishop/HBO

Dana White may have a new feud with Jon Jones to occupy his time now, but he’s not done with John Oliver yet either.

Two weeks ago, Oliver’s HBO Show, Last Week Tonight, produced a piece about the UFC’s return to action. The segment was critical of Dana White’s insistence on holding events despite a global pandemic, but the biggest takeaway from the piece ended up being Oliver’s jokes about ‘Fight Island.’ The comedian poked fun at the unimaginative name and offered a number of alternatives, including ‘UFSea.’

Then, this past week, White turned the joke on Oliver, filing for trademarks on ‘UFSEA’, including events and merchandising, and White acknowledged he was stealing Oliver’s idea and would not be giving him a cut. Well, consider the gauntlet thrown down.

On this week’s episode of Last Week Tonight, Oliver responded to White’ appropriation of his idea, supporting the UFC using it and offering to help name other things as well.

“First, Dana White intentionally forgetting my name is a truly excellent neg, or rather, it would be if he weren’t only number 83 on GQ’s list of the 100 most powerful bald men in the world from 2013,” Oliver started. “Now that is a neg right there, Dana. You got beat by Jason Alexander. You got Costanzaed!

“More importantly, 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. 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.”

Oliver went on to debut a list of other potential names for Dana White, including ‘Tug Slabmeat.’ But Oliver wasn’t just responding to White to get into a childish name calling session, he really wanted to dispute White’s claims that Last Week Tonight used ‘selective facts’ in their piece, ignoring important aspects to the UFC’s safety protocols.

“I am not mad at Tug Slabmeat for stealing our idea for ‘UFSea,’” Oliver continued. “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. In fact, 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.

“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 wasn’t done there though. After refuting White’s claims, the comedian then took the next logical step: he took something from Dana White.

“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?”

Tugslabmeatsbabypalace.com redirects the buying page for a ‘You Will Submit’ baby onesie on HBO’s online shopping tool, which is being sold for $19.95.

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Just like new. All Glory to God #ufc #espn

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Call out.

Goals.

Friends.

FIGHT ANNOUNCEMENTS

N.A.

FINAL THOUGHTS

Personally, I hope this petty feud between Dana White and John Oliver goes on for another six years.

Thanks for reading and see y’all tomorrow.

EXIT POLL

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