MMA fans worldwide were stripped on a temporary return to normalcy after UFC 249 was canceled when Disney and ESPN asked UFC President Dana White to stand down when it came to running cards during the coronavirus pandemic.
Color commentator Joe Rogan’s status for calling the event was unknown before the cancellation, but not that the event has been canned, it has saved Rogan from a lot of thinking.
“Wow! That’s interesting. Well, that saves me a lot of f*cking thinking,” Rogan said on The Joe Rogan Experience (via Jed Meshew of MMA Fighting). “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.”
Rogan had previously stated that he won’t be commentating on the card before slightly changing course to say he doesn’t know what he’d be doing about the card.
The longtime UFC color commentator also credits White for being a real man for how the whole situation was handled.
“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,” says Rogan.
There is no word yet on when UFC events will resume, but White said that the “Fight Island” could be ready to hold cards in about one month.
