Joe Rogan used a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience to express serious concern over one of the more damaging techniques in mixed martial arts, while simultaneously defending another that many in the sport consider equally problematic.
During a conversation with kickboxing heavyweight Rico Verhoeven, Rogan made clear that sidekicks and oblique kicks targeting the knee represent his biggest worry when it comes to potential rule changes.
“The thing that bothers me more than [calf kicks], the sidekicks to the knee bother me more,” Rogan told Verhoeven.
To drive the point home, Rogan pointed to one of the more disturbing moments in recent MMA history.
“Did you ever see Khalil Rountree and Modestas Bukauskas? It’s the worst one of all time. [The leg] turned sideways. He threw a sidekick, caught him on the front leg and just turned his whole leg sideways and he screamed and the fig ht was over.”
Rogan also brought up the Jon Jones vs. Thiago Santos bout, noting that Santos “blew out both his legs. He had to have knee surgery on both legs after the fight. Both legs. Just throwing those oblique kicks and the sidekick to the knee. Blew out both his knees.”
He then pointed to the Ian Garry vs. Shavkat Rakhmonov matchup, stating that Garry “hit him with an oblique kick in his left knee and his knee’s been f**ked ever since. He had to have surgery, had a second surgery, and he’s still out.”
For Rogan, the potential for permanent injury is what makes these techniques worth reassessing.
“That’s what bothers me about that is that you might not ever recover if your knee gets ripped to shreds, your meniscus gets torn apart, your ACL, MCL gets blown out.”
Both Rogan and Verhoeven landed on the sidekick to the knee being “a career ender.”
Yet when the conversation shifted to strikes landing on the back of the head, Rogan took a noticeably more forgiving position. He pushed back against criticism aimed at Ciryl Gane for punches that landed behind Alex Pereira’s head during their bout.
“I don’t think Ciryl Gane’s a dirty figh ter. I just think he’s trying to finish fig hts. Alex Pereira thought he was dirty for hitting him in the back of the head. And what I saw is Alex is moving. Ciryl’s trying to hit him. And sometimes when that happens, some of the sh0ts are going to land on the back of the head.”
When pressed on accountability, Rogan held his ground.
“If you’re trying to hit a guy right here and then his head moves and then you hit the back of the head, whose fault is that? Is that your fault that you’re supposed to pull back? You’re in the middle of a sh0t. It’s very difficult to stop.”
A deliberate kick aimed at an opponent’s knee joint concerns him enough to question its place in the sport, yet repeated contact to the back of the head gets the benefit of the doubt as an unavoidable consequence of competing.
