Joe Rogan heard what Ronda Rousey had to say about him and he’s taking it in stride.
Rousey recently slammed Rogan’s MMA expertise at the end of a recent podcast appearance with Rogan’s friend Bert Kreischer, saying Rogan “is not an expert, he’s a fan with an audience,” and that despite Rogan’s previously competing in Taekwondo, “he never fought. That’s not fighting.”
On a recent episode of his own podcast, Rogan responded to the former bantamweight champion.
“She’s a legend,” Rogan said. “I’ve got nothing but love and respect for that lady. What she did was so impressive, she was the first legitimate female superstar. She made the UFC female division possible. If it wasn’t for her, [Dana White] was very open about never having female UFC fighters. It took someone that was that dynamic, that was that special to open his eyes and go, ‘You know what? I think this lady’s a star.’
“And to be the type—when she said, like, I wasn’t an expert—everyone’s entitled to their opinion, but you’ve got to understand why she thinks like that. Because she has a champion mentality. ‘You never fought, you ain’t shit?’ I get it. It’s totally fine.”
To give Rousey’s comments some context, she was responding to a joke Kreischer made about asking Rogan how much training Kreischer would have to do to have a chance to beat Rousey in a fight. However, this isn’t the first time Rousey has publicly criticized Rogan, as she previously lumped the UFC color commentator in with the media that she referred to as “a bunch of assh*les” for supposedly turning on her following the two losses that marked the end of her fighting career.
Rogan was one of Rousey’s biggest boosters during her UFC run, which ran from 2013-2016. He frequently praised her for her skills and personality, the latter of which he believes would lead her to naturally bristle against negativity.
“I was a huge supporter and still am, but when you watch a fight and you’re watching you get your ass kicked and the other person is talking about how great the other person is doing and how bad you’re doing, that doesn’t sit well with a lot of people, especially someone who’s got that kind of champion mentality, that f*cking pit bull mentality,” Rogan said, referring to Rousey’s devastating knockout loss to Holly Holm at UFC 193. “‘I thought you were with me. F*ck you.’
“And then it was after the fight, I was very public about saying I don’t think she should fight for a long time. They were talking about doing an immediate rematch and I was like, that’s crazy. They were talking about doing a rematch in four months or something like that, I was like, when you get head kicked into the shadow realm, you’re supposed to take a long time off.”
During Rousey’s prime, she was not only a dominant UFC champion, she crossed over into the mainstream and was making frequent public appearances in addition to being cast in movie roles. Rogan, among others, opined that Rousey might have been distracted by the increased attention and media responsibility, another criticism that didn’t sit well with her.
Still, Rogan continues to give Rousey credit for breaking through as a prominent female athlete in an unfamiliar space.
“Also, the problem in that fight, I think for Ronda is when you start becoming really famous, then the hyenas show up,” Rogan said. “They start offering you this and offering you that and distracting you with this and distracting you with that and now you’re going to meetings and you’re talking to agents and you’re setting up movies and you’re doing this and you’re doing that and all those things take away from the most important thing, which is your fighting. Even if they don’t take away from the amount of training you do, they take away from your focus. They rob you of the bandwidth.”
“So there was two factors. There was the skill of Holly, the fact that she had all this opportunity to study Ronda with a great team and devise a gameplan, and then there’s also the stealing of focus. Ronda, I was the biggest champions of her as a fighter, as a legitimate pioneer and a star. First, it was Gina Carano and Cris Cyborg to a certain extent… and then it was Ronda, but Ronda eclipsed all of them. She’s bigger than all of them.”
Rogan himself has been a lightning rod for criticism in recent years due to the massive popularity of his podcast, on which he frequently discusses a number of controversial topics that he and his guests share their unfiltered opinions on. Having dealt with a constant barrage of comments from fans, media, and everyone else, Rogan easily shook off the Rousey news.
“The Ronda Rousey one didn’t really bother me,” Rogan said. “I know what that is. She’s a f*cking pit bull.”
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