UFC legend Matt Brown has strongly criticised Dana White's response to the recent shooting at the White House Correspondents' Dinner, after the UFC president described the experience as 'awesome'.
White's Controversial Comments
Dana White, a close friend of US President Donald Trump, was present at the dinner on Saturday when an attacker breached security and opened fire, allegedly targeting the president. Trump, First Lady Melania Trump, and Vice-President JD Vance were quickly evacuated from the stage. A police officer was shot but survived thanks to a bulletproof vest, while the suspect, Cole Allen, 31, was arrested and charged with attempted assassination.
White, 56, told USA Today: 'It started to get noisy. Tables started getting flipped over, guys running with guns and they were screaming get down! I didn't get down. It was f***ing awesome, and I literally took every minute of it in. It was a pretty crazy, unique experience.'
Brown's Personal Experience
Matt Brown, who was present during a fatal mass shooting in 2004, expressed his disbelief at White's remarks. In 2004, Brown attended a Damageplan concert in Columbus, Ohio, where guitarist Darrell Abbott was murdered along with three others by Nathan Gale before police shot the assailant dead. Brown, then 45, witnessed the entire incident from near the stage.
'I'm absolutely flabbergasted,' Brown told MMA Fighting. 'It took me completely blindsided when he came out, when I saw the short little clip of him saying that was awesome. I think I have a little bit more of a justification in criticising that, being that I've been in a mass shooting before.'
Brown continued: 'I've been there when there was a shooting going on, which most people probably haven't. It is not awesome in any sense of the word. It is not f***ing cool one bit. For [White] to say that, I did not appreciate that. Not that my opinion matters, whether I appreciate it, but there's people whose lives are at risk there.'
Brown's Strong Rebuttal
'That really blows my mind that someone would say that s*** like that was awesome. A dude got shot; maybe he survived, but got shot. That's a traumatic experience for him. There's not a single f***ing thing awesome about that. People don't need to be going around shooting people and there's nothing cool about that. I don't know why anyone would say that was awesome. That's the weirdest, most oddball thing I've ever heard anybody say.'
Brown admitted he rarely brings up his own experience but felt compelled to speak out. 'I don't really bring [my experience] up. It's not something I want to go around preaching about, but it is something that happened to me, so I'm not ashamed or awkward about it. It happened, and you live through it, but I can't wrap my head around why you would even say that.'
He added: 'I'm not one to criticise what people say a lot of times. Dana says a lot of stuff, I think, that we could all have opinions about. That's what he does very well. He gets a rise out of people, gets opinions, gets people talking. We talk about what he says all the time, but I'm not very critical of it. I'm like: He's promoting a fight, what do you expect? He's promoting two people going in a cage and [trying] to beat each other up in front of a bunch of drunk fans. What do you expect from the guy?'
'But that one, I don't have a lot of respect for that. You can't say that. It was very tone-deaf. You just don't say that. You can say anything, just about, except for that. There's a million simple things to say. You don't say that. Even if you somehow oddly feel that, it's just not what you say.'
Upcoming UFC Event at the White House
On 14 June, the UFC is scheduled to hold an unprecedented fight card at the White House, with the Octagon expected to be set up on the South Lawn. The event will help President Trump celebrate 250 years of the United States and his 80th birthday, which falls on the same day.
