United Memes reach MMA

The story of the week wasn’t hostilities with North Korea, or an edging towards a return to cold war with Russia, it was United Express Flight 3411, at Chicago O’Hare Airport just before 5:20 p.m. on April 9. United needed to seat four employees so asked for volunteers, eventually offering US$800 in vouchers, a hotel stay, and a seat on a plane leaving more than 21 hours later to four people for voluntarily deplaning.

No one bit, so four passengers were selected more or less at random. Three left voluntarily but one, Dr. David Dao, refused and was bloodied in a struggle with police who were brought on board to remove him. A video of the incident went viral.

United CEO Oscar Munoz borrowed a page from Matt Serra, saying in essence:

Reaction was swift and despite a completely one-sided narrative, by April 11 shares in United Continental Holdings (UAL) had shed $1.5 billion of United’s total market share. Munoz tried to walk back his comments, President Trump called the airline’s treatment of their customer “horrible,” unsettling details about the doctor emerged, and above all, there were some awesome memes.

Some of the memes naturally have an MMA or combat sports base, too.

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A post shared by Joe Lauzon (@joelauzon)

https://twitter.com/Paris__G/status/852495511676489732https://twitter.com/Reflog_18/status/851452978104082434https://twitter.com/MrJRan/status/851512074803052544https://twitter.com/Bobnificents/status/851703083117797376https://twitter.com/MaxismMao/status/851666420341407744https://twitter.com/chrismelberger/status/851928818017239041https://twitter.com/DJOra/status/851874989284499456https://twitter.com/donbarger/status/851618525022212096https://twitter.com/bobvulfov/status/851508172888166400https://twitter.com/HipsterTito/status/851554565879103489https://twitter.com/MarcusMacCowan/status/851631769640026112https://twitter.com/OHara915/status/851771002531061761https://twitter.com/JakeMikeHenry/status/851808845554884608