Joe Rogan has been a champion of martial arts, mixed martial arts and possibly the biggest influencer for the sport in the last 20 years. But this all came as a result of the the impact Bruce Lee had on him as a child.
In one podcast episode Rogan shared his admiration for the legendary martial artist. On the show Snoop Dogg opened up to Rogan about owning of a life-sized statue of the kung fu icon.
Bruce Lee was one of the renowned performers who demonstrated authentic martial arts combat for the American public. Fans of MMA still have warm memories of his influential martial arts movies. A documentary on Bruce Lee features Jon Jones, Dana White and many of the influential MMA personalities whose lives were changed for the better thanks to Lee’s influence.
Bruce Lee tragically passed away at a young age, and is remembered for his achievements.
In The Joe Rogan Experience episode #1733, Rogan confessed his affection for the performer while discussing with Snoop Dogg.
“It’s kind of crazy that one guy [Bruce Lee] and one particular style of movie created like a whole way that people wanted to fight.”
Speaking of the lengths individuals would go to imitate Lee’s fashionable movements, he continues,
“They wanted to start kicking people.”
“Before that, it was like fisticuffs. It’s so attractive for people to fight that way, they like kick each other and sh*t”.
The jiu-jitsu black belt praised Lee for motivating him to pursue an MMA career as a child. Rogan says that “Lee influenced a whole culture.”
He added: “He’s absolutely the original reason why I got interested in martial arts.”
Snoop Dogg said how he was a “Die-hard” admirer of Bruce Lee. He said,
“I got a big life-sized statue of Bruce Lee at the front door of my building…”. Describing the statue, he said: “With his shirt off and the three scratches on his chest…”
Rogan slammed how Lee was portrayed in Once Upon a time in Hollywood a while later despite having had Quentin Tarantino on the podcast.
“That was f—ed up. He was a dummy in the movie. The problem was in real life, there was no evidence that he was an egomaniac dummy. He was a very interesting guy. Very insightful.”
“The problem was they made him look like a buffoon. There was no evidence that he was a buffoon…It’s a movie about a real person who has a real legacy and a bunch of people love him.”
“There was a lot of evidence that Bruce Lee was this brilliant, insightful guy and in that movie, they made a character of that. I didn’t like it. You’re making the guy looking like a f—ing idiot when he wasn’t an idiot.”