Joe Rogan will no longer commentate on the mega rematch between Israel Adesanya and Robert Whittaker at UFC 271 due to a ‘scheduling conflict’.
The 54-year-old provides MMA fans with his entertaining views every time the UFC hosts a PPV event in the USA. However, despite initially being scheduled to commentate the event at the Toyota Center in Houston, Texas, the plan has changed at the final hour.
Former two-weight world champion Daniel Cormier and broadcasting veteran Jon Anik will remain on the broadcast. But the popular podcaster will no longer call the fights. UFC Hall of Famer Michael Bisping will step up to take his place.
The news that Rogan won’t appear in the booth comes amid massive outrage aimed at the colour commentator.
Controversy surrounding Joe Rogan ahead of UFC 271
The American is one of the most popular broadcasters on the planet. His show ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’ has become a pop-cultural phenomenon, bringing in 16 million monthly downloads. According to Celebrity net worth, he made a whopping $100 million when he signed with Spotify in 2020.
However, following the resurfacing of a recent video, a large percentage of his audience has turned against him. Fans have put together compilations of Rogan repeatedly using the N-word. This resulted in offended musicians such as India Arie leaving the platform.
The UFC commentator released an apology on his Instagram page.
He said: “I’m making this video to talk about the most regretful and shameful thing that I’ve ever had to talk about publicly.
“There’s a video that’s out, that’s a compilation of me saying the N-word. It’s a video that’s made of clips taken out of context of me of 12 years of conversations on my podcast, and it’s all smushed together, and it looks f***ing horrible, even to me.”
“Now I know that to most people, there’s no context where a white person is ever allowed to say that word, never mind publicly on a podcast, and I agree with that. I haven’t said it in years, but for a long time, when I would bring that word up like if it would come up in conversation, instead of saying ‘the N-word’, I would just say the word.”
“I thought as long as it was in context, people would understand what I was doing.”
Israel Adesanya supports Joe Rogan
Despite the backlash towards the analyst, the premier MMA promotion’s middleweight champion has spoken out in his defence. During the UFC 271 press conference, he answered a media question and gave an opinionated response.
The 32-year-old shouted: “First off, let me take this one, hold up, I’m black, I can take this one. There’s a lot of c*nts in this game. There are a lot of snakes in this game. I’ve been in this fight game since 2008, and Joe Rogan is one of the nicest, coolest, humble motherf***ers I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Understand that. F*ck the noise.”
It’s clear that ‘Style Bender’ wants Rogan to continue commentating on events in the future. But the smoke will have to clear before we find out whether that’s the case.
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