The Last Week Tonight host has taken some jabs at White and the UFC for running events during the coronavirus pandemic. Oliver even mocked Fight Island by saying the UFC should call it “UF-Sea,” which led to White trademarking “UF-Sea” while also selling shirts with the “UF-Sea” logo on it.
A lot of good will come from the sale of the “UF-Sea” shirts because White will donate the proceeds to The Woodruff Family Foundation, which is one of Oliver’s favorite charities.
“He was making fun of ‘Fight Island’ and basically saying ‘this idiot is going to build an island where people can fight during COVID-19’ and all this stuff. I’m actually a John Oliver fan,” White said to TMZ Sports (via Damon Martin of MMA Fighting). “So I went out and I trademarked — he said you should have just called it ‘UFC-Sea’ — so I trademarked UFC-Sea. Then he went out and bought a trademark of ours that had lapsed and he’s actually doing baby onesies that say ‘you will submit’ or something like that. My t-shirts are done. These are going to go up for sale on the UFC website. They’re going up this week and all proceeds to these t-shirts — I did some research and John Oliver, one of his big charities is the Bob Woodruff Foundation. The Woodruff Family Foundation mission is to ensure injured post 9/11 service members, veterans and their families are thriving long after they return home. So that’s one of his big charities. So all the money from the UF-Sea shirts are going to go to one of John Oliver’s charities.”
There has been no comment yet from Oliver, who is selling “You Will Submit” onesies on the HBO website, with “You Will Submit” being a former UFC trademark.
