UFC pesident Dana White has announced that Joe Rogan will return to the commentary team for UFC 272 following the comedian’s absence at UFC 271.
The podcast hosts nonattendance was greatly pronounced when he missed Adesanya Vs. Whittaker II but White announced he will return.
“Yeah hell be here,” White said when talking to Barstool sports. “He’s [Rogan] on this week, Cormier’s off.
Former light-heavyweight and heavyweight champion Daniel Cormier announced just a couple of days ago that his mother had sadly passed away.
Alongside Rogan and lead play-by-play voice of the UFC Jon Anik will sit former UFC middleweight champion Michael Bisping.
Why did Joe Rogan miss 271?
Leading up to UFC 271 the Comedian found himself amid yet another stream of controversies. Rogan had come under fire for the spread of misinformation on his podcast relating Covid-19 and the vaccine. This resulted in episodes of his show being removed from Spotify and continued calls for him to be deplatformed.
Then, just a week before UFC 271, a video compilation surfaced which showed Rogan using racial slurs numerous times.
The comedian would take to his Instagram to issue an apology, I’m making this video to talk about the most regretful and shameful thing that I’ve ever had to talk about”, The comedian began.
“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.”
I never used it to be racist because I’m not racist but whenever you’re in a situation where you have to say, I’m not racist, you fucked up and I clearly have fucked up,”
“There’s nothing I can do to take that back, I do hope that if anything, that this can be a teachable moment because I never thought it would ever be taken out of context and put in a video like that.”
Rogan was scheduled to commentate at UFC 271 but during fight week it was announced that the podcast host would not appear which according to a UFC offialc wa sdue to a scheduling conflict.
This however was refuted by White when he was asked if the UFC had asked Rogan to sit out “There’s no conflict of schedule,” White said via TheMacLife. “Joe Rogan didn’t work tonight. Joe Rogan could’ve worked tonight.
“Yeah, I don’t know what Joe Rogan had to do, you guys will have to ask Joe Rogan, but there was no ‘Joe couldn’t work’ or anything like that. I know that came out. It’s total bullshit.”
Are you glad to see Joe Rogan back on the commentary desk?