Israel Adesanya is team Joe Rogan after the Ultimate Fighting Championship (UFC) commentator has been faced with backlash in recent weeks.
Controversy brewed after the resurfacing of clips where Rogan used the “N-word” on old episodes of his podcast The Joe Rogan Experience. This comes after plenty of flak for thoughts and comments from Rogan and guests in recent months regarding COVID-19 and its vaccine.
The UFC 271 pre-fight press conference took place on Thursday where Adesanya, Robert Whittaker, Derrick Lewis, Tai Tuivasa, and UFC President Dana White took the stage. Throughout fight week, it was always a possibility that someone would present White with the question pondering his reaction and response to everything surrounding Rogan.
When asked by MiddleEasy’s Chris De Santiago, White was handing off a shoe gifted to him from Tuivasa — for drinking purposes, of course — therefore allowing Adesanya to intercept as De Santiago was met with boos from the crowd, a typical fan response to these types of questions.
“Let me take this one, I’m black, I can take this one,” Adesanya said. “Look, there’s a lot of c—ts in this game, there’s 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, most humble motherf—rs I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Understand that. And you know, f—k the noise, man. You know what they’re trying to do. You can’t control the man and he’s got the biggest platform in the world right now so that’s my n—a Joe Rogan. F—k the noise. Keep doing you, Joe. Have some mushrooms.”
Rogan has since apologized and addressed his actions on social media as well as his podcast. Despite all this, Rogan is still set to commentate UFC 271 where Adesanya looks to defend his 185-pound Middleweight crown opposite Whittaker.
MMAmania.com will deliver LIVE round-by-round, blow-by-blow coverage of the entire UFC 271 fight card RIGHT HERE, starting with the ESPN+ “Prelims” matches at 6 p.m. ET, followed by the remaining undercard balance on ESPN/ESPN+ at 8 p.m. ET, before the PPV main card start time at 10 p.m. ET on ESPN+.
For more news and notes on UFC 271 be sure to visit our comprehensive event archive right here. For the updated, revised, and finalized “Adesanya vs. Whittaker 2” fight card and ESPN+ lineup click here.