Matt Brown has sharply criticized UFC president Dana White for describing a shooting at the White House Correspondents’ Association dinner as an “awesome” experience.
White was in attendance at the Washington Hilton when a 31-year-old schoolteacher opened fire and struck a Secret Service agent. Brown, who has lived through an active shooter situation himself, took issue with White’s description of the incident.
“I’ve been there when there was a shooting going on, which most people probably haven’t,” Brown said, before adding, “It is not awesome in any sense of the word. It is not f*cking cool one bit. For him 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. That really blows my mind that someone would say that shit 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*cking 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 was present at a 2004 Damageplan concert where a gunman killed four people, including guitarist Dimebag Darrell Abbott, and wounded three others before being shot dead by police. “That was a traumatic experience for a lot of people,” Brown said, detailing how he “watched [Nathan Gale] get his head blown off when Officer [James] Niggemeyer [shot him], which you’ve got to give him all the respect in the world, that dude’s life has been traumatized by this incident.”
Brown emphasized the lasting impact of such events, calling it “very disrespectful to say that was an awesome experience for anyone.”
