UFC commentator Joe Rogan is no stranger to controversial remarks and it seems he has added another to the list. Rogan was discussing the beginnings of the UFC with Avengers: Endgame and No Country for Old Men actor Josh Brolin when he claimed that boxing and Budweiser once partnered up to ban the UFC.
Rogan started working with the UFC in 1997. It was UFC 12 and he was doing post-fight interviews at the time, which he did for a couple of years. UFC president Dana White has often praised the commentator for taking the gig for free for the first 13 fights. But it was also during a time when MMA was banned from cable, which Rogan holds boxing and Budweiser responsible for.
“Boxing did to them. Boxing in cahoots with Budweiser… which is funny because Budweiser now sponsors the UFC. But they all wanted the MMA thing to go away. Because it was so exciting and crazy, they thought of it as a threat. And they essentially banished it.”
Rogan further explained that the sport had a bad look to it compared to boxing’s elegant dances.
“It also just had this unsavory look to it. You are fighting in a cage. And back in those days, it was bare knuckle. It was just crazy. They would just call it human cockfighting, which I always found disgusting.”
UFC would often struggle to even find arenas to host their fights. It was during this time that President-Elect Donald Trump offered Dana White support and allowed him to host their events in his casinos and hotels.
As time marched on, the UFC became successful. It piqued people’s interest and made for good television. The reason was simple, as Rogan pointed out.
“As a martial artist, the question was always, what would happen if you got a judo guy and he fought a wrestler? What would happen if you got a boxer and he fought a karate guy? And the UFC was like, let’s find out. “
But it wasn’t till the finale of The Ultimate Fighter I that changed everything for the company.
How Bonnar vs.Griffin saved the UFC
While the reality show was a success, it wasn’t a guarantee of anything until the finale aired free, LIVE on Spike TV. Fighting for a six-figure UFC contract on April 9, 2005, Forrest Griffin and Stephan Bonnar went on an absolute slog fest for three rounds. While it wasn’t a technical spectacle, on the night, it didn’t need to be.
The Ultimate Fighter had already done a great job of changing people’s perception of fighters. Every week, people connected to these men as they shared the stories of fighting to help their families out.
Griffin and Bonnar had fandoms following them and these people latched on to their personalities, which busted a lot of myths about the “cockfighting” accusations. Both were educated, humorous, and likable, a far cry from the general perception of mixed martial artists used to be back in the day.
Both fighters refused to concede an inch during their war and every investor out there knew they were sleeping on a gold mine even before the fight was over.
Bonnar recalls that night and says,
“I knew it was a good fight during the fight. It hit me when everyone started stomping their feet and it felt like the whole place was shaking. And that was in the second round. I was like ‘oooh, this must be good.”
In the end, Griffin won the fight but such was the magnitude of the moment that White and the UFC offered Bonnar a contract as well. More than three million people actually tuned in to watch them beat the living crap out of each other and the rest is history.
