UFC legend Matt Brown has taken issue with Dana White’s response to last week’s shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, after the UFC president labelled the experience “awesome”.
White, a friend of US president Donald Trump, was present for the shooting on Saturday, when an attacker burst past security and opened fire, allegedly targeting Mr Trump.
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The president, First Lady Melania Trump, and vice-president JD Vance were among those rushed off the stage. One police officer was shot but was saved by their bulletproof vest, and alleged suspect Cole Allen, 31, was arrested and later charged with attempting to assassinate Mr Trump.
Dana White (left) at a UFC event with president Donald Trump (right) and Secretary of State Marco Rubio (AFP/Getty)
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. We were sitting right in front of the table, right in front of where the president was. Nobody got tackled but guys came in looking for shooters, I thought the shooter was over by us or something.”
And Brown, who was once present for a fatal shooting, has hit out at White’s response to events.
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“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.”
In 2004, Brown attended a concert in Columbus, Ohio, staged by the band Damageplan. There, the group’s guitarist Darrell Abbott was murdered by assailant Nathan Gale, who killed three other people before being shot dead by police. Brown, now 45, was standing near the stage throughout and witnessed the proceedings in their entirety.
“I’ve been there when there was a shooting going on, which most people probably haven’t,” Brown continued. “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.
White before the 2026 White House Correspondents’ Dinner (Getty)
“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.
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“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.
“I’m not one to criticize 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?
The retired Matt Brown (left) remains a UFC fan-favourite (Getty)
“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.”
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On 14 June, the UFC will stage an unprecedented fight card at the White House. The Octagon is expected to be erected on the South Lawn, as the UFC helps Mr Trump celebrate 250 years of the US – and the president’s 80th birthday, which is that day.
