This article was written in the days following UFC 100, and was originally published on Nokaut.com
This past Saturday Joe Rogan once again demonstrated both his enthusiasm for mixed martial arts and his bad habit of making hyperbolic, biased declarations.
Joe Rogan is a true asset to the UFC and mixed martial arts generally. He brings a definite, infectious excitement to his broadcasts, and his effortless knowledge of the sport's history, composite disciplines, and fighters is impressive. Yet it is this close, personal relationship he has with the world of MMA that seems to be at the heart of a mounting problem. That is, Rogan's increasingly uninhibited partiality while calling action from the broadcast booth and while conducting post-fight interviews.
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During the UFC 100 broadcast Joe Rogan waxed horrified at the judges' decision ruling Yoshihiro Akiyama the winner over Alan Belcher. As an exhausted Akiyama celebrated, Rogan turned his indignation up to 11 and announced "Alan Belcher knows he got robbed." Such a statement is problematic for several reasons. Most obviously because it assumes that Belcher was, in fact, robbed.
It’s important to be clear. Alan Belcher was not "robbed" in his decision loss. It was a close, competitive, and exciting fight. But before anyone takes Rogan's cue, they should consider: to say Alan Belcher was robbed is to say that in no way, in any reasonable person's mind, should Akiyama have been seen as the victor. To say Belcher was robbed is to claim, essentially, that the fight wasn't even close. Yet, a look at play-by-plays running on three MMA websites proves contrary. Our very own Nokaut.com saw the fight in Belcher's favor, and MMAJunkie and Sherdog.com saw Akiyama as the bout's winner. While this speaks to the extremely narrow margin by which Akiyama won (a fact Akiyama himself seemed to realize given his apparent sense of relief), it also indicates that, as much as the fight could have gone to Belcher, more times than not it would end with Akiyama's hand being raised.
Furthermore, if Rogan was to play back the third round of this fight, he would hear himself commenting that Akiyama, having just taken Belcher down, was scoring points with the judges, and that Belcher needed to get back to his feet, urgently so, in an effort to take the round, if not finish Akiyama in the closing minutes. Why would this even be an issue if Belcher had, to that point, won the fight to such a degree that any conflicting judge's verdict would be called a robbery? In the end, even Rogan's own immediate (and in this way perhaps more honest) assessment of the fight contradicted a subsequent incredulity that, in this light, can only be seen as fueled by favoritism.
Of course, these are easy points to make in retrospect. At the time, on a live broadcast, Rogan couldn't have known what the general consensus was and, once properly contextualized, how little the decision warranted such outrage. However, what he should have realized, as both a long-time fan and someone working within the industry, is the fallibility of his own eyes when evaluating a fight; with this in mind he might have withheld such a definitive, public assertion until he gave himself time to reflect and become better informed. This might seem like a lot to ask of someone so engrossed by the sport as Joe Rogan but, as he is a professional, it's not unwarranted.
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Joe Rogan's vocal yet unfounded disgust following the Akiyama-Belcher decision wouldn't be such a problem if it weren't indicative of a larger trend. As Rogan has become a fixture within the UFC, he has seemed less concerned with providing an apparently unbiased point of view, all the while relying more and more confidently on his gut feelings, his heart, and his personal preferences when qualifying the action inside the Octagon. Long time fans of MMA might claim that they have always detected a tendency towards favoritism in Joe Rogan. To whatever extent this has been true, it has become all the more pronounced in the last nine to twelve months—a fact that is often obscured by his usual perceptiveness and also by partner Mike Goldberg's more persistent towing of the company line. Yet whereas Goldberg can be excused for being occasionally off the mark on account of naiveté and professional obligation (he is paid to push the UFC brand, after all), Rogan, as a student of the game with a wider range of expression, ought to know better.
Note first the fight between Dong Hyun Kim and Matt Brown at UFC 88. Kim was awarded a split-decision victory following a third round in which neither exhausted fighter was able to deliver an emphatic conclusion. Across the 15 minutes of the fight, however, Joe Rogan couldn't help but enthuse over Matt Brown's notorious grit and dubious in-fight effectiveness. His affinity for Brown reached a fever pitch when, during the post fight interviews, Rogan actually came out and told Brown that he felt he’d won the fight. One may appreciate the emotional investment that would lead to such an outpouring, but the fact remains: with Dong Hyun Kim (who, frankly, worked his ass off) and a large attending audience still present, such an assertion was hugely disrespectful to the Korean fighter and his camp.
Kim had the misfortune of fighting another of Rogan's favorites in Karo Parisyan a few months later, at UFC 94. With both fighters on the ground, Kim worked for an ankle lock. Parisyan, in an attempt to escape, haphazardly kicked Kim in the head. The illegal move was caught by the referee, Parisyan was officially warned, and the fight was restarted. Rogan admonished the break in action, however, and feebly contended that what Parisyan leveled at Kim's head was more of a "shove" than a kick. It's troubling that Rogan would debate an issue of fighter safety on the mere basis of semantics, and yet more troubling since it was in the service of a fighter for whom Rogan has had an admitted fondness; since Parisyan's early days in the UFC Rogan has sung his praises. In this case, though, Rogan's hero-worship consequently belittled Kim's own right to a fair fight.
Shots to the back of the head go unremarked. A stalemate on the ground is seen instead as a tactical advantage that must remain uninterrupted (or vice-versa, depending on who's landed on top, figuratively speaking). These episodes are small, but nevertheless threaten to compromise what has, to date, been otherwise admirable commentating.
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Let's keep things in perspective. I only dissect Joe Rogan’s work as an announcer because he is an integral member of the mixed martial arts community. He's worth discussing. What's more, I would never go so far as to say that Rogan's partiality is "bad for the sport." This is a concept that gets tossed around far too much in an attempt to lend moral gravity to some issue that only a lunatic fringe really agonizes over (that drawing of a penis on Brock Lesnar's chest is bad for the sport; Dana White's Hot Topic wardrobe is bad for the sport; Kimbo Slice's asymmetrical chest hair is bad for the sport; photos of a bloated Chuck Liddell with no damn shirt on are bad for the sport). In fact, if anything, Joe Rogan is good for MMA--he's articulate, likable, and is trusted by probably thousands of spectators. This last point, though, is why it's important that he become a little more measured in what he says. There are a great many MMA fans, eagerly looking forward to his next comedy special (something like "Screaming Bearded Man with a Passion for Space-Faring Mammals") that readily hang their opinions about MMA on Joe Rogan's own. So, while the fate of mixed martial arts doesn't necessarily rest in Rogan's wildly gesticulating hands, it might be nice if he were to encourage a more thoughtful, fair-minded audience.
And if Joe Rogan doesn’t address the issue, then at least those watching the UFC must acknowledge that there is a problem. No hateful oaths over the internet are necessary. Just please take what the guy says with a grain of salt.
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