There’s a protracted checklist of nice shade commentators who’ve known as boxing matches and MMA fights however Dana White believes there’s one one who stands heads and shoulders above the gang.
Ever since he first debuted with the UFC as a backstage interviewer all the way in which again in 1997, Joe Rogan has been a mainstay with the promotion. Nowadays he’s the lead shade commentator for a lot of the main pay-per-view broadcasts and the UFC CEO provided him excessive reward when addressing Rogan’s contributions to fight sports activities.
“I take into account him the best to ever do it,” White advised the 2 Bears, 1 Cave podcast. “F*ck all these guys which have ever carried out any sort of commentating on fight sports activities earlier than this. Rogan is by far [the best].”
Whereas there’s clearly subjectivity when calling anyone the best of all-time, White defined one of many many the explanation why he believes Rogan has cemented himself on the high — at the very least the place MMA is concerned.
When Rogan first began calling fights for the UFC after Zuffa bought the group again in 2001, MMA was barely a blip on the general sports activities radar. Followers tuning into watch a UFC broadcast didn’t actually perceive all of the nuances of the game however particularly when it got here to the bottom sport that blended wrestling, placing and grappling.
White credit Rogan with discovering a technique to clarify these positions to a normal viewers that didn’t know the very first thing about what was truly occurring when a struggle landed on the bottom.
“To go in and name fights shouldn’t be simple to do. It’s very exhausting to do,” White stated. “Rogan got here and proper off the bat began doing it. What was good about Joe and why he was so instrumental in serving to us construct this sport, no person was ever going to f*cking perceive the bottom sport.
“Rogan would stroll you thru intimately whereas it was occurring, he could be one step forward of the fighter truly because it was going down, strolling you thru … and Rogan would f*cking lay it out. We couldn’t have employed anyone else that might have carried out it.”
White additionally considers Rogan a real fan of the game, which comes throughout in the course of the broadcasts and that makes an actual distinction with each the viewers and the fighters competing within the octagon.
“Each time you’d see him on digicam and he could be speaking concerning the fights that night time, you knew — you felt it in your f*cking soul this man was not a paid speaking head,” White stated. “This motherf*cker loves this shit. It got here by at each occasion that we did.”
There have been instances up to now the place Rogan has overtly contemplated stepping away from the UFC, particularly when rigorous journey acquired to be an excessive amount of for him.
In consequence, Rogan now solely calls home pay-per-view occasions however he doesn’t journey outdoors the USA and he solely works these main playing cards that happen 12 to 13 instances per yr.
Judging by White’s feedback, he’s going to do every little thing doable to make sure that Rogan continues calling fights so long as he’s concerned with the UFC.
“It was meant to be,” White stated about working with Rogan. “This relationship with me and Rogan and all the opposite issues which have come collectively in my life and his life and different folks’s lives, it’s f*cking loopy when you concentrate on it.
“Rogan is one of the best to ever do it. One of the best to ever do it.”
