Joe Rogan Reacts To Conor McGregor Being Pulled From UFC 200

In case you’ve been absent for the past few days, here’s a brief update on the crazy circumstances surrounding Conor McGregor. The UFC featherweight champion set the internet ablaze with a Tweet announcing his sudden retirement, and since then it’s been sheer mayhem. Speculation erupted in the mixed martial arts community, and was further fuelled by the announcement he’d been pulled from his UFC 200 rematch with Nate Diaz. In just a matter of hours, the promotion’s stance on McGregor had changed massively, as UFC president Dana White made clear his feelings on ‘The Notorious.”

White claimed he couldn’t make exceptions for any fighter, and that McGregor had refused to attend the first media obligations for UFC 200, leading to the eventual rift we are seeing today. His retirement was short lived though, as the Irish star clarified in his recent statement, declaring himself as still looking to fight at UFC 200. By all accounts, that window of opportunity is now closed as the promotion seeks a replacement to face Diaz. White even dropped in a USADA (United States Anti Doping Agency) implication during his interview with UFC on FOX, adding to the rumours surrounding McGregor’s reasons for becoming embroiled in this saga.

The world is once again fixated on McGregor, the cameras keep rolling and the mics keep recording, but will the brash Irish striker keep fighting? His rise to prominence and sensational engulfing of the UFC is truly a first, with no one, not even greats like GSP or Anderson Silva ever having as much star power as McGregor. Perhaps this posturing by the UFC is the promotion trying to finally put a lid on the monster they created before he starts to take the limelight off of them. The UFC is clearly all about the promotion, and not the fighters, and maybe McGregor’s plight will actually help improve working conditions for future fighters.

Who knows, perhaps there really is more to this than we realise at this stage, but whatever the case, it’s one of the most publicized, mainstream included, MMA happenings ever.

Joe Rogan went on his awesome podcast last night and gave his opinions and feelings on the whole drama surrounding Conor McGregor and UFC 200.

As usual, it’s incredibly accurate and also thought provoking…

Joe Rogan

“Conor announced his retirement, and I thought he was trolling. Then the news started coming out, and then I thought maybe something happened, or maybe it was that guy who died recently. “

Brendan Schaub

“I think that he is just a beast in terms of promotion. You sit down with any other guys and they’ll talk about their camp, they are just going over the same stuff. You talk with Conor and he is spitting out gold. He’s coming up with original content left and right, promoting the sh*t out of his fights. He’s doing all this promotion, and then the UFC says he needs to fly around the world and do this media tour, at some point you have to realise this is a sport, it’s not WWE, and I think he and Dana just need to talk.”

Rogan

“The problem is it sets a precedent. As a business man, I would say you can’t let someone decide when they do media or not. They have certain obligations, the question is when do those responsibilities move in to a purely digital realm? There’s nothing wrong with an old school press conference, but you can accomplish way more with a few f*cking viral videos then you ever could going to a weird interview with people who aren’t MMA fans. They make them do these morning shows with people who don’t know who they are or don’t give a sh*t about MMA. When I do an interview with Conor I’m talking to find out what’s going on in the mind of a guy who going to take part in one of the greatest things I’ll see all year.”

Schaub

“Yeah these people are sitting there asking ‘Oh how did you get that cauliflower ear?’ Shut the f*ck up, and also Conor is a guy where he’s crossed over in to pop culture now, a Tweet from him can hype the fight. He’s so popular now, but they need to let him focus, let’s just have him focus just a little bit. Conor’s exhausted from all this media stuff. And you get these fighters who argue it’s their ‘obligation’ to do media, an it’s like slow your role homie. You’re not doing a Conor McGregor press conference. Did anyone think to bring the press conference to him? They’re talking about him on ESPN, they interrupt a major NBA game to announce Conor isn’t fighting at UFC 200 anymore, that’s how big he is. They could not get this attention, the UFC, but Conor can. It’s a different age man, you have a legit superstar and he’s bigger than these old school press conferences. You can’t have a pissing contest, if he wins this do you know how much money he’s gonna make the company? Let’ say Conor doesn’t fight at UFC 200, and Nate fights dos Anjos, let me know how those ratings would go. You ask any major sports superstar to go on a world tour, Lebron or Ronaldo maybe, and not get paid to promote the fight, they’ll tell you that their social media will cover way more than this. ‘Go f*ck yourself!'”

Rogan

“I also feel like the magnitude of this dilemma in front of Conor, he’s got Nate Diaz, a guy you can’t half-ass. Even if you were 100% ready, you’ve never even fought Diaz at 100%, he was drinking tequila in Mexico. Conor is one of the most charismatic guy ever, he is just a marketing machine. But Nate Diaz is huge right now, after beating Conor, he’s not as big as Conor, but hat’s another part of this fight. Conor is fighting another huge mercurial character. They offered the fight to Khabib Nurmagomedov, but he couldn’t take it because of Ramadan.””

“It totally makes sense (to let Conor train properly for this fight), but here’s the other thing, one of the most important things any athlete does is gets proper rest. What’s the one thing that gets messed up when you travel? It’s rest.”