UFC 329 was marred by an embarrassing broadcast error when Shakur Stevenson appeared sitting on his seat but NBA star Jalen Williams’ name appeared instead on screen. Following Conor McGregor and Max Holloway’s return fight at T-Mobile Arena, President Dana White immediately addressed this miscommunication in their post-fight press conference and at their post-fight press conference as soon as he could.
White expressed his frustration openly: “Listen, all I’m telling you all is I can’t believe nobody has hit me with this yet; so, my production team just did the White House; we built an arena on its south lawn – and it was fantastic both live and watching on television!”
He continued, “I just paid Shakur Stevenson a sh*tload of money, and for some reason we can’t figure this celebrity sh*t out. They put him up as a f**king OKC NBA player. Are you f**king kidding me? I mean, it’s just absolutely crazy. We are the absolute worst to ever do the celebrity thing. When we put celebrities up, we are the worst. I just had this f**king 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 f**king graphics and put the wrong guy’s name on it! We win. We’re the worst EVER to f**king do it.’”
The error occurred during the broadcast’s celebrity montage segment, which was designed to highlight the star power present at the event. Among those featured were Mike Tyson, Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn, and Noel Gallagher. Stevenson, recently signed by White’s Zuffa Boxing promotion, was seated cageside amid this group.
Every celebrity’s name was identified correctly except for Stevenson’s. When the camera focused on the four-division boxing champion, the graphic mistakenly tagged him as Jalen Williams, the Oklahoma City Thunder guard who recently won an NBA title.
This wasn’t the first time such a mix-up happened with UFC’s production team. A similar incident took place at UFC 306, known as Noche UFC, held earlier in 2024 at The Sphere in Las Vegas. During that broadcast, boxing champion Terence Crawford was misidentified on screen as rapper Kendrick Lamar while attending Sean O’Malley’s title defense. White addressed that error too, though with a lighter tone, saying, “I don’t know who the hell did that. That was pretty bad. He did kind of look like Kendrick Lamar, though. Let’s not f**k around.”
Jalen Williams responded to being mistakenly named during the broadcast with humor, posting “Ehh, close enough…” on his social media story.
It’s important to note that this type of confusion is not unique to mixed martial arts. Similar incidents have occurred in other sports arenas as well.
Earlier Celebrity Misidentification: Cristiano Ronaldo’s Experience
An incident somewhat resembling this confusion involved Cristiano Ronaldo during an event in Japan around 2014 or 2015. Reports suggested that Ronaldo may have been mistaken for Brazilian soccer legend Ronaldo Nazario (R9) due to the welcoming samba music and carnival-style dancing performed by Japanese entertainers, which led to speculation on social media about a mix-up between the two athletes. While there is no solid evidence confirming the mix-up, the scenario fostered notable discussion online.
Notwithstanding criticism levelled at UFC’s production team, their error with Stevenson could represent an easily preventable mistake given how important promotion for Zuffa Boxing can be when trying to build momentum through recruits such as Stevenson.
Shakur Stevenson remains unannounced as yet following his signing to Zuffa Boxing; however, expectations are high of an initial matchup against WBO Welterweight champion Devin Haney, which both fighters have shown public interest for as part of an anticipated debut bout for both of them.