Joe Rogan Explains Why He Never Competed In The UFC
Longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan has a wealth of knowledge regarding the sport of mixed martial arts (MMA), having earned his black belt under two different Brazilian jiu jitsu instructors to compliment his extensive taekwondo background.
Given Rogan’s amazing talent in the sport of MMA many wonder why the voice of the UFC never attempted to compete inside the Octagon himself, a question Rogan answered during a recent episode of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience while interviewing former kickboxing champ Joseph ‘Bazooka Joe’ Valtellini (via MMA Mania):
“I’m old as f*ck,” Rogan said. “If I was competing still when the UFC was around, I probably would have done something … when I stopped fighting, it was in 1989, that was the last kickboxing fight I had. And there was nothing, there was no money in it. And I was getting headaches just from sparring.”
“I did not spar smart. I sparred meathead style. I know a lot more today than I ever knew then as far as consequences and what’s important and how to learn better. I was good at being obsessed with things, just focusing on them constantly all the time, it was kinda frantic, it wasn’t calculated and intelligent.”
“There was essentially no way to have a career other than teaching,” Joe said. “And so when I started to get into stand up comedy, I realized, ‘Oh wow, I could make a living doing this.’ Like there’s actually a real path, like there’s guys I know that make a living doing this. While everyone I know in fighting is broke or they’re slurring their words. Guys from the gym would be in gym wars and now they’re all f*cked up, they don’t know where they parked their car. There was a lot of that sh*t that was scaring the f*ck out of me.”
What do you think fight fans? How would Rogan have fared inside the Octagon against some of the promotion’s elite?
You can listen to Rogan’s comments about not going down the road to professional fighting here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLdRpAXI3Y0
