Joe Rogan Details His Martial Arts Background

But you sang from your perspective saying like he was a martial artist, right? For sure. So then isn't that still true without the movie shit? He was a phenomenal martial artist? He was definitely a phenomenal martial artist. Just didn't compete. Didn't really compete. Well, yeah. I guess that's part of it. But I mean, like, can you not compete and still be at the top of a thing? I mean, is that possible? I don't know, man. You know, that's the one thing that if I was going to make an argument against me as a commentator for the MMA, for MMA, I've never fought in MMA. Like, it's kind of hilarious that I'm a commentator for MMA. Even though I'm a fan of it, I know mostly what I'm talking about. Imagine that's on the contract. You must know most of what you're talking about. I know mostly what I'm talking about when it comes to wrestling. Like, I've really, it's really interesting to work with guys like Dominic Cruz or work with Daniel Cormier. Daniel Cormier in particular was like one of the best wrestlers to ever compete in MMA. I mean, he's an active wrestling coach and Dominic does a lot of coaching too and a lot of MMA coaching too. But both guys are so good at breaking down the technical aspects of it. It makes you realize how little you really know about certain specialties, you know? But are they good at what you, the difference is, are they good at also articulating emotion and public, the public viewpoint? That's the difference. I can give expert analysis of ground fighting. Yeah. Ground fighting, I can give expert, like just, you know, not to blow my horn, but I know what's going on. Like the way a lot of people know what's going on with boxing, I can tell you what's going on with chokes and when someone's in trouble, when someone's not. And I can see it because I've been strangled a million times. I can see where he's in trouble. I know what that is. I'm like, this guy's in trouble. Like, and some people can't see that. But most MMA fighters at a certain point in time, they know most basic shit in terms of positions and when things are dangerous. But when stuff gets exotic, like weird rubber guard transitions or strange chokes, like people invent new chokes all the time. There's always like something new that you haven't seen before. Like how the fuck did he do that? And then you have to go back and watch it again. But do people think, how many people think that you did fight? I don't think anybody does. You don't think so? You know, I know I kick boxed. And I mean, if anybody looks at my record, I had three kickboxing fights. And I don't know how many Taekwondo fights a lot. Probably 100. What was your record? I don't know. I had two and one in kickboxing. I lost my last kickboxing fight. But as far as Taekwondo, I have no idea. I won the Massachusetts state championship four years in a row. And I won, I think it was called the American Open, which is a big tournament that I won. I came in second place in the US Cup. That was a big thing in that was in Connecticut. And I fought the national champion in the finals. And I thought I beat him. That was when I was like 1920. That was when I was at my best. When I was around 21, before I tried out for the nationals and try, I was going to try to make the Olympic team. That's when I was starting to box and kick box. And I was losing faith in Taekwondo. I was realizing that there was, I had a distorted perception of what I could do. So it was just way, you were way more engaged with boxing than you ever were with Taekwondo. I was getting beat up. That's what it was. I would go to these kickboxing gyms and when I would just, when I kick box guys, I could kick them so hard. They couldn't get close enough to box me a lot of the time. So I'd kick them in the arms, I'd kick them and they'd be like, what the fuck? And then I could, even though my hands weren't as good as those, my legs were so much better because a lot of these guys couldn't kick at all. So as long as we're starting at a distance, I could slam my legs into them and they'd just be terrified. Like so many guys just be, they would just try not to get hurt. Right. Because someone can kick and you can't kick. That's a terrible feeling. Yeah. So much, so much scarier than taking them because punches, I feel like you're like, you're getting into a fist fight. If someone kicks you in a fist fight, I'm done. I'm getting this. It's so painful. There's so much mass in the leg and it's so, they're so heavy. You don't realize how hard it is until you get hit. Even just getting hit in the arm. It fucking sucks so bad. When someone slams their shin into your arm, you're like mother fucker. It sucks dude. But when I was boxing with dudes, I was getting lit up. And particularly there was this one dude that I used to box with. His name was dangerous Dana Rosenblatt. He wound up to become the Massachusetts or the New England middleweight champion. Really good guy. And I was sparring with him a lot. In the beginning, he was beating my ass. And I was like, damn, this kid wants to fight way more than I do. Because I was already doing comedy at the time and I was starting to realize like, I got to pick one or the other. And then as I was getting into kickboxing, because around 21 was when I got into comedy right after my 21st birthday. And so when I was getting into like, really into kickboxing was like 20 into 21. And the same time I was thinking about doing standup. And at the same time was realizing Taekwondo was bullshit. Not really bullshit, but it's incomplete. The problem is it's incomplete if someone knows how to box. Like when someone closes the distance on you, you don't know what you do with your hands. You don't know how to protect yourself. You don't know where the punches are coming from. You're not used to it. And you have to get used to it. And the only way to get used to it is to learn how to actually box. And I didn't know how to actually box until I was like 19 and 20 when I started going to these other gyms. And then when I realized I had these giant holes trying out for Taekwondo, like doing Taekwondo tournaments. And I still competed in Taekwondo, but less. I wasn't excited about it anymore. Because I realized like this is, if I want to be a complete martial artist, like I want to follow like Bruce Lee's teaching, I found a hole in my game and I have to patch that shit up. There's a whole part that I thought I knew how to do and I didn't. I knew how to punch things. Like I could punch things hard, but you think that's boxing until someone pops you with a double jab left hook. Pop, pop, pop. And you're like, Oh no, what is this nonsense? When technique comes to play. When it's this lean hand uppercut you just fucking chin me with. You think that's also because you're obsessed as a human. You're obsessed with finding the next level of things. So you were leveling up too. Like Taekwondo just became kind of boring to you too. Wasn't that because I still wasn't the best in the country. I'd lost in the finals to the guy who is this Kareem Jabbar, I think his name was. He sounds good. He was good. He was very good. He was the national champion. You know Kareem Jabbar is a good. I lost a decision, but I'm telling you, I thought I won that. But there was a lot of wacky decisions in Taekwondo. I mean, I definitely lost a lot of fights, but there was ones that I won that I didn't get the decision. Is it a point system? Yeah, but it's a weird point system. It's very similar to boxing where you know, you're like, you decide, like people decide. I never understood, but I love boxing watching my whole life. I still don't get boxing scoring when you're like, where do they come up with these numbers? It's just people that aren't good at it. If you had like elite boxing judges, like that's what I used to love about. It's like comedy judges. Harold Letterman used to do the, he used to tell you what the score was. He would tell you what the score was. You know, like, so he would say, this is how I have it. You know, I think Rosario has been doing the best work. And he would, you know, break down the fight. It was part of the, but it was fun. But anyway, I wasn't bored with it in that I achieved the highest of heights. It was that I realized it had holes in it, like big holes, big holes, big holes. Like if I was in a street fight with one of those boxers and I was in a bar where I couldn't throw a kick, I would be in deep shit. Deep shit. And so I learned how to box, but that was right. So like, my experience, like I'm no expert. That's my point. Like I'm not a guy who should be explaining like everything that's going on. Yeah, but it's entertaining. That's the day we talked about before the show. All these NFL guys are mad because Tony Romo got a $17 million contract and they're way better than him on the field than he ever was on the field. A lot of these guys are getting paid way less than this dude was. And they're like, how the fuck is this dude getting paid? He's just talking. Yeah, and he's just chatting. Well, that's what makes guys like Neon Sanders. Neon Dion. Neon Dion. Yeah. So flamboyant because that's where you get money outside of just playing. Well, and the truth is guys like Romo, he does have, and this is something that you would share, his acumen for the game is so strong, but his also like his opinions are so real that he's not trying to save a job. A lot of times these announcers, they try to just save a job. You know, like doing the right thing. They're being safe. Yes. They're totally not like, he doesn't give a fuck. He'll call out an offense or a defense and say, well, this is why they fucked up that last play. And I think America goes, oh shit, that's great. That's cool to know. Versus someone just going, here's the play, and there's the play. And that's what happened in okay here next. I mean, it just, people got bored of the same kind of announcers. Well, it's also his insight is going to be so much better than anybody who hasn't played the game. He's so keen. He just came off the field. Yeah, he knows. That's why in the UFC, they do a great job with guys like Michael Bisbing, who was a former middleweight champion. He does a lot of commentary now and he's great. DC, DC commenting. Yeah. Dominic Cruz, Paul Felder, who's great at it too. And all these guys that have fought before, especially at the really highest level, maybe even fought some of the guys are doing commentary for it. They can give real insight as to things this guy does, what they train for, tendencies.