Always the proponent of former US Navy SEAL, David Goggins, UFC color commentator, Joe Rogan has once more come to the defense of the former after he put Israel Adesanya through the ringer.
Goggins, a retired Navy SEAL for the United States defense forces, has since turned his hand to motivational speaking and is an accomplished author since his retirement.
Goggins is likely best known in the mixed martial arts community for training sessions with UFC veterans of late, as well as appearances on the JRE podcast. Earlier this month, Goggins linked up with former two-time middleweight champion Israel Adesanya — running him through an endurance gauntlet.
The cardio battle, which included a stunning 5-mile long warm-up run, saw Izzy pushed to his limit throughout by the 50-year-old New Yorker. Reacting to the footage on his podcast recently, Rogan himself was left shocked by Goggins’ relentless. “He broke him (Adesanya),” Rogan said on his show.
“‘When your world ends, mine begins.’ And this is one of Goggins’ multiple workouts of the day that he took ‘Stylebender’ through. By the way, this is already after they ran. This is the third thing they did — they ran, they did the aerodynamic bike. And then they’re doing this,” the JRE host added.
Rogan also took it upon himself to address the critics and skeptics, who have cast doubts over Goggins’ consistency with these insane workouts.
“People go, ‘Oh, he’s not doing that everyday,'” Rogan added. “Well, f*cking clearly he is. Clearly he is. ‘Cause look at him, he’s not even breathing heavy. ‘Stylebender’ is dying, and David Goggins is talking to him. With normal breath,” he added.
Interestingly, this isn’t the first time a former champion was pushed beyond their limit by fitness fanatic, Goggins.
Ferguson pukes during Goggins’ training regime
Backed to the Octagon by Goggins en route to his loss to Paddy Pimblett back in 2023, ex-interim champion Tony Ferguson embarked on a gruelling workout with the former Navy Seal.
Known during his Octagon run for his immense cardio, Ferguson went through ‘Hell Week’ with Goggins — who was left amazed by the veteran’s ability to keep going and going, and going.
Convinced he had “broken” Ferguson on day one of the seven-day challenge, Goggins admitted the Oxnard favorite returned stronger and stronger.
“I broke ‘El Cucuy’ on Day One, or at least I thought I did,” Goggins said of Ferguson.
“I had him deep in the hurt locker and figured the questions were soon to be coming. And I told Kish late that night. ‘This motherf—er is done!’ But I was wrong. He woke up on Day Two even more fired up to go. There was never a question asked. His response was always the same: ‘OK, Coach’, “ he added.
Further praising Ferguson for his will to keep going, Goggins claimed revealed that at around 11 pm on a Wednesday night when Tony could barely walk having completed 2 miles of lunges among other things, he set the UFC fighter with yet another task.
“But, the craziest thing happened … The motherf—er gave me a crazy ass smile and I could tell that he had flipped the switch. I was there for the rebirth of ‘El Cucuy’,” Goggins noted.
However, despite his cardio training, Ferguson would go on to lose against Pimblett that December.
