On JRE MMA Show #179 with Josh Thompson and Big John McCarthy, Joe Rogan brought up the Oleksandr Usyk vs Rico Verhoeven match and quickly made his stance clear.
Rogan opened the discussion by asking his guests, “Did you guys watch the Rico Verhoeven Usyk match?” As the conversation shifted toward the scorecards, which had Usyk ahead two judges to one at the time of the stoppage, Rogan initially tried to be careful with his wording.
“I don’t want to say robbery,” Josh Thompson said. “But I guess apparently Usyk was up on the scorecards two to one.”
Rogan immediately pushed back, calling it a robbery outright. He said, “That’s robbery. That’s the robbery. If that was the case, it’s robbery.”
Rogan was far less reserved when discussing how he personally scored the match.
“He was winning 8-2 in my eyes,” Rogan said. “I thought he was winning 8-2 going into the 11th round when the match was stopped.”
He also praised Verhoeven’s performance throughout the bout and admitted he underestimated how well the kickboxing champion would adapt against Usyk. Speaking about Verhoeven’s conditioning and experience, Rogan said, “The guy’s such a cardio fiend and he’s always shredded.”
“He’s just so used to combat too that getting in there just figh ting Usyk, it’s not a big deal,” he added.
The stoppage itself was another major issue for Rogan.
“The whole thing’s a mistake,” he said. “It takes like 30 seconds and then the referee stops it when he’s still standing, moving around.”
Rogan also questioned the referee’s logic after the earlier knockdown sequence.
“If you’re going to stop it because you felt like the first knockdown was too much, why would you let him rinse the glove off?” Rogan asked. “And he doesn’t take significant damage after that. That’s a bad stoppage.”
He further pointed to the timing of the stoppage, saying, “It’s literally the end of the round. I think he actually stops it when the round’s over.”
Rogan was equally critical of the judging.
“Whoever was judging the Usyk match was incompetent,” he said. “Those people were ridiculous. The fact that they didn’t have Rico ahead is crazy.”
From there, Rogan connected the result to the financial stakes tied to Usyk’s undefeated record.
“When you got a guy like Usyk who’s arguably the greatest heavyweight boxer of all time, he’s definitely in the conversation,” Rogan said. “And then you have so much money involved in him being undefeated.”
“Whether the referee’s corrupt or not, they know,” he continued. “Whether the judges are corrupt or not, they know.”
Rogan then shifted the discussion toward gambling in boxing and how close scorecards can influence massive betting outcomes.
“All you have to do is make it a split decision,” he said. “All you have to do is be one bad judge. Even though it was clearly for this guy, you say it’s for that guy and someone’s making a ton of loot.”
