Joe Rogan Reacts To UFC 249 Cancellation

Popular commentator Joe Rogan has offered his thoughts on the cancellation of UFC 249.

The long-time voice of the octagon had been considering if he would work the event scheduled for April 18. Speaking on his podcast Rogan seemed relieved that he no longer had to think about working at the event amid the coronavirus pandemic, he said.

“Wow! That’s interesting. Well, that saves me a lot of f*cking thinking,” Rogan said when the news broke. “Damn. I was 75 percent ready to go. The only thing that worried me was if I contracted something and then came in contact with other people. So what I was gonna do is do it if I definitely could get tested and then I would have to know the results before I come back, but f*cking – even then you don’t know.”

“I think they made probably a risk assessment and then they made a calculation of what the negative aspects of going against government regulations, in terms of state government, would be and they probably were like, ‘We can’t do this,’” Rogan said

“Imagine being the president of the UFC. Imagine having all these fights that you have to make and having all this pressure on you, and you’re also a famous guy like Dana is. Imagine being that guy. F*ck that job. President of the UFC is second only to President of the United States. [Laughs]. Bro, he’s under ridiculous amounts of pressure. . .

“The most important thing is he’s a psychotic driving force for the most exciting organization in the world and I don’t think the organization gets where it is without Dana White. I think you have to have a crazy person at the wheel. You have a guy who doesn’t give a f*ck. He’s a real man. He doesn’t give a f*ck, he’ll talk sh*t, he’ll insult people, he’ll go back with you.”

“As long as the right precautions are in place, I agree,” Rogan said. “But the thing is, you’ve got to measure, if this was any other disease where we understood it better, I would be way more confident. . . I don’t want people who are less robust than Michael Yo [a friend of Rogan’s who contracted coronavirus and recovered following a stay in the hospital] to die, so we’ve got to figure out what the f*ck this virus is, how does it get treated, what’s the most effective way, and then it makes sense that we’re a little bit more loose with our regulations.”

 “Listen man, I was hesitant,” Rogan concluded. “I was like, ‘I really want to go’, I was leaning towards going, but I’m like, ‘God, I don’t want to hear it from people who don’t think it’s a good idea.’ I’m not interested in putting myself at risk but my real concern was how do I know if I contract it and then bring it back, how am I gonna know? And then I had to be honest with myself and I really wouldn’t know. So the only way I’d be able to do it is to do it and then be in quarantine until I get tested, and I was like, ‘Oh Jesus Christ.’” (Transcribed by MMA Fighting)

What do you make of the comments from Joe Rogan on UFC 249?