UFC president Dana White is taking advice from a late-night talk show personality. Earlier this month, Oliver went on a rant about the UFC’s plans to resume activity during the coronavirus pandemic and took aim at the highly-anticipated Fight Island.
White has long teased Fight Island as a way to book international fighters amid the pandemic and Oliver took the opportunity to crack a joke about it’s name while tossing out other suggestions to the UFC boss.
“He could have called it ‘Brawlhamas,’ or ‘Puerto Ruckus,’ or ‘Owie Maui,’ or ‘Slam Miguel,’ but he didn’t do that,” Oliver said. “He didn’t do that, and he didn’t even go with the obvious name for an island where you stage UFC fights which is simply, ‘UF-SEA.’ Look at me Dana. Why didn’t you just call it ‘UF-SEA? It’s perfect.”
White was paying attention and said that Oliver was ill-informed about the UFC’s plans after the clip first aired, but he also decided to take Oliver’s suggestion.
This week, it was revealed that the UFC applied for the “UFSEA” trademark.
Once the report surfaced, Dana White confirmed that he was inspired by Oliver’s suggestion, but he won’t be sharing any profits.
“What’s his name?” White said. “The guy that came out. John Oliver came out and did that piece with some selective facts about what we had done in Florida and all that stuff at the UFC. I told my lawyers after that, I said, ‘See if the trademarks are there for UFSEA’. So obviously they did and obviously you guys know about them. Did we get them? Yeah, I think we got them.
“Thanks, John Oliver. I’m not giving you a cut.”
Dana White says that Fight Island will be fully operational in June. In the meantime, the UFC returns to action this weekend on Saturday, May 30, with UFC on ESPN 9 which is headlined by a welterweight clash between Tyron Woodley and Gilbert Burns.
