Joe Rogan is one of the pioneers of the podcasting genre, but MMA fans largely know him as one of the voices of the UFC. Not only is he a color commentator, but he’s also responsible for most of the octagon interviews on the company’s pay-per-views.
Rogan has been in the UFC since 1997 and is friends with the company’s president, Dana White. Due to this, everyone says that he’s always been influenced by White. People say that Rogan, who’s generally outspoken, never criticizes the controversial executive.
Recently, he talked about his allegiance to Dana while talking to journalists Krystal Ball and Saagar Enjeti of Breaking Points.
The trio was discussing how money and friendship influence cronyism. Rogan gave an example of his friendship with Dana and how he won’t criticize the UFC boss.
“If anybody ever comes to me with any criticism of Dana White, and I’m like, ‘you’re going to the wrong guy'” – he told independent journalists.
Rogan described Dana as his “brother” and that he “would never say a bad thing about him”.
He did say that if the two didn’t personally know each other, maybe he’d criticize Dana since he likes to critique everything. However, because of Rogan’s love for Dana, he would never talk against him.
“If I didn’t know him, if he was some ass**le that lived in some other country, I would probably talk sh*t about him. I talk sh*t about everything.”
“But I love that guy to death, and I’ll never say a bad word about him.”
Rogan continued by saying that he will always be biased toward his friends.
“So if you come to me about objective journalism for one of my friends, you’ve got the wrong person.”
MMA journalist Ariel Helwani recently slammed Rogan for his loyalty to Dana.
Rogan recently talked about Helwani, saying that he “likes to get people to say certain things”.
In response, Helwani called Rogan “Dana’s boy” and that “he’s always gonna have his back,”
Helwani believes that Rogan only criticized him because he and Dana White don’t like each other.