Last week, Joe Rogan boldly declared the likes of current fighters like Jorge Masvidal to be “better” than Georges St-Pierre. According to the longtime UFC analyst, “Gamebred” in particular is on “another level” and could beat a prime GSP if he was “around at the time,” which he was, and he didn’t.
Now, Rogan is saying that strikes to the back of a fighter’s head should be allowed in MMA. This is coming from one of the sport’s notable figures who’s been around for nearly three decades and saw the evolution from “No Holds Barred Fighting” to what we all know as mixed martial arts today.
“I don’t even know if we should stop hitting people in the back of the head. It doesn’t seem to make any sense to me. Because a lot of knockouts like high kicks, they wrap around the back of the shoulder and they go right to the back of your head, and it’s legal. The guy gets KOd,” Rogan told Masvidal in a recent episode of his podcast.
Rogan even gave an example to prove his point.
“Like Ciryl Gane and Junior Dos Santos. (Gane) kind of hit him with an elbow in the back of the head. It’s like, it should be legal. I don’t understand why it’s not legal. And people say you’re more vulnerable there, don’t get f—ng hit there.”
Rabbit punching, as it is colloquially known, is illegal across the board in all combat sports due to the high injury risk it entails, with possible serious and irreparable damage to the brain stem, spinal cord and cervical vertebrae.
The most prominent example is the case of 30-year-old Puerto Rican boxer Prichard ColĂłn, who suffered a career-ending injury after taking punches to the back of the head during his fight with Terrel Williams in 2015. ColĂłn fell into a coma and has reportedly been in a vegetative state for years.
But for Rogan, rabbit punching should be acceptable since it was practiced during MMA’s early days.
“Eddie Bravo’s talked about this all the time. In the old days of MMA, when a guy got someone’s back, they would just drop elbows down on his head. Back of the head. If you have the back and the head is there, all this punching just to the side is not realistic.”
Rogan seemed serious with his statements, at least based on his tone, but it’s probably par for the course for a self-confessed “jackass” with a “drunken, ridiculous podcast.”
He really is going insane.
Did he say it in his creepy whispering voice like Joey Diaz saying to Chelsea handler, " hey, I got the coke, let me lick your pussy"
It’s amazing how the so called “press” is so often opposition to whatever it is “covering”. No different even with MMA/UFC. The amount of media produced to lie and spin UFC/Dana/Rogan in a bad light is incredible. Just like the amount of supposed fan comments in UG that do nothing but shit on MMA fights/events before during and after.
Joe did not “call for” the legalization of strikes to the back of the head. He gave some thoughts in a discussion about the merits of the prohibition.
As long as we tolerate the world reserve fiat global enslavement system, everything that can be corrupted will be corrupted.
The decentralized internet challenged the dominion to the narrative, and so they flood the signal with noise.
UG doesn’t have nonsensical moderation, and therefore there is discussion that is outside the bounds of the heavily moderated forums. Is this due to some appreciation for free speech, whether it stupid, ugly, or otherwise? Or maybe is it allowed, and flooded with noise, to vilify anyone/everyone here, and by extension the UFC and co.?
Now let’s go back to discussing MMA while being inundated with noise in this MMA forum of how everything the largest promotion does is wrong, how bigoted everyone involved with the UFC is, how bad the next event looks, how bad each fight is while they’re happening, and how disappointing the event was once it’s over.
Yawn.
What a bloviated, pontificated ,waffling, load of nonsense.
I love Joe but I feel he is wrong on this. I had a training partner that would hit me in the back of the head and it would hurt for days. Here I am now with some issues and I believe some of that is why. That was with big gloves too.
Prichard Colon would like a word.
This is somehow even worse than the GSP take. He wants people to die in the Octagon.
He’s not calling for it to be legalized but I think he just wants to see a fight to the death in person
He literally said the phrase “It should be legal”. Can’t blame this one on the media.
Never understood this ban. Why is it ok to hit front or side of head but not back. Is there any evidence supporting this or just yet another stupid propagated rule?
guess he did then, the guy says a lot of stupid shit sometimes but just ends it with something like “I’m an idiot what do I know”
WOW , Thanks for posting
Since the fighters are wearing a cup, you should be able to kick that thing as hard as you want. Over and over again; till they puke.
Eye pokes too.
Very different. Yes it is more damaging and dangerous to the back of the head. Standing up it should likely be allowed, it is unless you targeted that, but on the ground there’s very little clue for the ref to know if it hurt the fighter if he can’t look at the eyes.
That rule should be kept. But knees to the head of a grounded opponent and kicks to head between. TWO grounded opponents should be legal. Ridiculous it’s not.
This is the David Burnell guy who posted the tweet they put in the story.
