Joe Rogan raised concerns about the use of oblique kicks in MMA during a recent episode of the JRE MMA Show featuring kickboxing legend Rico Verhoeven, questioning whether the technique is too damaging to remain a legal part of the sport.
The conversation came up when Rogan referenced the match between Jon Jones and Thiago Santos.
“When Jon Jones competed against Thiago Santos, he blew out both his legs. He had to have knee surgery on both legs after the match. Both legs. Cuz just throwing those oblique kicks and the sidekick to the knee. Blew out both his knees,” Rogan said.
Verhoeven, who has accumulated over 75 professional kickboxing bouts and sustained his share of leg damage across a career spanning more than a decade at the top of the sport, was direct in his response.
“That’s a kick I don’t like,” he said.
Rogan then brought up Ian Garry’s match with Shavkat Rakhmonov as a more recent example.
“When Ian Garry competed against Rakhmonov, who’s a top welterweight guy, one of the top contenders, he hit him with an oblique kick in his left knee and his knee’s been messed up ever since. And he had to have surgery, had a second surgery, and he’s still out.”
To illustrate the point further, the two watched footage of Khalil Roundtree’s leg twisting sideways after a sidekick to the knee from Modestas Bukauskas.
Verhoeven’s reaction was immediate. “I feel like that one maybe is too much. Because it’s just like… it’s just career ending.”
Rogan admitted he is not fully settled on banning the technique but expressed clear discomfort with what it can produce.
“I’m torn because on one hand it’s like it doesn’t happen that often and you should be able to defend against it, and knowing it exists you have to be able to defend against it,” he said, “but the thing is one kick could change and you’re out for a year. Like we said a fighter really only has x amount of years to compete. One whole year gone from one kick is kind of crazy.”
Both men noted that professional athletes already operate within a narrow competitive window. An injury that removes a year or more of that window, caused by a single legal technique, is a cost that becomes harder to dismiss the more frequently it occurs.
