Joe Rogan has gone over why he decided to do commentary for UFC 249.
Rogan was initially against the idea of being in the booth for the event. That was due to the coronavirus pandemic. The promotion tried running UFC 249 on tribal land in California. Doing so meant that the UFC would’ve avoided adhering to the California State Athletic Commission and a stay-at-home order. Ultimately, the event was pushed back to May 9 and held in Jacksonville once the state of Florida deemed sports on a national level “essential.”
Here’s what Rogan said back in March.
“The UFC is talking about putting on a fight on April 18th,” Rogan said on the JRE Experience (via MMAFighting). “I don’t know how they’re gonna do that. I don’t know if they’re gonna be able to do that in the United States. They’re talking about doing it in a place with less than 10 people, just an open arena – I guess someone’s gonna commentate it [but] it’s not gonna be me – and they’re gonna be duking it out in an empty place. And they’re gonna try to do that on the 18th.”
Joe Rogan Talks Changing Stance On UFC 249 Role
During an edition of his JRE podcast, Rogan revealed why he ultimately decided to perform commentary duties for UFC 249 (via MMA Weekly).
“I decided, I gotta do one. When Dana White asked me to do it, I was like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I wanna do one. I definitely wanna do one.”
It was certainly a unique experience for Rogan, the fighters, and the UFC staff. UFC 249 was held inside the Vystar Veterans Memorial Arena. It was the promotion’s first event since March 14, which was also an empty arena show.
Rogan expressed his gripes with the UFC’s initial plan for post-fight interview. The promotion wanted Rogan to be distanced from the fighters. Rogan felt this didn’t make sense as everyone was already tested for COVID-19. The UFC ended up doing post-fight interviews in the traditional sense.
