Dana White Renews Criticism of World Cup Production Staff

Dana White, UFC CEO, has never been known to hold back on his opinions, regardless of how controversial or explosive they happen to be. Throughout his tenure as the president and later the CEO of MMA's No. 1 promotion, any target drawing the ire of Dana White has been taken down.

Not even White's own production staff has been unscathed. A week ago Saturday night, UFC 329 was held inside T-Mobile Arena.

During the card that evening, Shakur Stevenson, who was just recently signed to Dana White's Zuffa Boxing promotion, was shown onscreen in a closeup shot. The lower-third graphic on the screen instead displayed Stevenson as Oklahoma City Thunder small forward Jalen Brown.

Dana White Took Own Staff to Task After UFC 329

During the UFC 329 post-fight press conference, Dana White told the assembled media on press row that he had a heated discussion with his production crew after the on-air snafu. In his comments, he compared his staff to the one working the 2026 FIFA World Cup.

"We are the absolute worst to do this celebrity thing," he said at the time. "When we put celebrities up, we are the worst. I just had this 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 graphics with the wrong guy's name on it."

After White said of his own crew on the night of July 11, "We win. We're the worst," Sunday afternoon's 2026 FIFA World Cup Final came and went, with the game needing extra time to decide a winner. Following 120 minutes, plus stoppage time, Spain defeated Argentina, led by Lionel Messi in what may have been his final World Cup match, 1-0.

White Delivers One Final Salvo at Production Staff After World Cup Concludes

Although Sunday's final was eight days removed from Dana White's rant against his own production staff, following the match, he took to social media to fire one more punch against the World Cup producers.

"You know what's crazy, I actually teed up the guys responsible for doing the production, the guys responsible for the production of the World Cup, for you guys to hit a grand slam home run," White began last evening. "Even though everybody on my team was arguing with me saying you are the worst, I said no, we are the worst. They didn't (expletive deleted) it up as bad as we did."

Dana White's comments only escalated from there.

"What do you guys do?," he pondered. "You triple down today and you just go '(Censored) you, Dana White. You're not beating us, we're the worst production team in the history of sports to ever show celebrities.' I bow down, congratulations to the producers of the World Cup. You guys win."