Joe Rogan - John McCain's Problem with the UFC

Last show. That's why I'm in favor of headbutts. It's like there's a defense for them. You can figure it out. More is figured it out. But it's perception and that's what the entire sport has fought for its entire existence. Well, let me tell you this because I'm beating a dead horse on this. Everybody listed this podcast knows I don't like gloves. I don't think guys should have to wear gloves because I don't think... Tell me why you don't like gloves. Because I think why should you have padding on your knuckles that makes your knuckles more effective when you don't have it on your shins, you don't have it on your elbows, you don't have it on your knees. Really? It doesn't make any sense. Your heel? Your heel is one of the hardest parts of your fucking body. Everybody's seeing Edson Barbosa. Terry Adam. Fuck that perception. How is it okay to shin somebody in the head? Is this perception to be uninformed? It's the reality. Back... Okay, let's go back. We're going back all the way to UFC 8. The way back machine. UFC 8 was the first time that I ended up in court before UFC 8. Because John McCain had come out with this whole thing and everyone can sit there and say why John did it. No. Budweiser. Thank you very much. You hit it right on the head. Budweiser was sponsoring boxing. Bingo. Okay. You know, I hear all the stories of how, no, John McCain did us a favor. Well, you weren't there at that time. He didn't do us any damn favors. They brought him in because they knew that they needed someone who was very respected to be against MMA. Exactly. Well, you got to look at the pay-per-views. The very first pay-per-view for the UFC, 87,000 buys, they were hoping for a home run at around 25. They got 87,000. The second one, they were in the 180-some thousand. Then 200,000. Then 300,000. To put it into perspective, today sometimes, like, I think, there was a fight on Mighty Mouse. There was a fight fairly recently where Mighty Mouse pay-per-view where I think it only got 150. You know, let's be honest. I think probably the last one they had, it's not going to be up there because there was so many- Amanda Nunes? Yeah. Well, there's so much competition around it. You had Lomachenko fighting the same night for free. Right. You know, and so people look and go, ah, you know, on this one, I can still watch something. It's not that that wasn't a good card. Right. It's just the matter of- Was that the same night as Bellator? Yeah. Was Bellator on Friday? No, same night as Bellator. So you had all those things. And only one of them you had to pay for. Yep. So, right. Exactly. But you look at all of that, man, and it's like, it's crazy. Yeah. Crazy what happened because John McCain comes out, we go to court in- because Puerto Rico, he sends a letter there, and they try to shut it down. We end up in federal court. And they bring in this boxing expert to be on their side. And one of the things I did is, you know, they had gloves and they're talking about we had no gloves. And I said, you know, and I took the glove and I said, here, I want to do a demonstration for you for the judge. I said, I would like that boxing expert, take your hand, put it in that glove. I want you to hit this desk. Hit it hard. Hit it as hard as you can. He goes, crack. Take it off. Hit it just as hard now. And he goes, well, I said, this is my point. That glove is not there to protect my head. It is there to protect his hand. That is what a glove is for. A glove does not protect someone as far as their brain scrambling or anything. It is there to protect my hand so I can punch you more. That's what it's there for. 100 percent. Okay. And if you look and say, if you want to take away some things that go with what's the most traumatic injuries we have in MMA, people are going to look and say all this stuff about, oh, we have, you know, guys breaking our, concussions are the most important thing that we have going on. That's the most critical thing we have going on. And if someone gets to punch less because they have to be more precise with where they're doing it and be careful as far as how many times they do do it because they can't continue to do it, you know, in that prolonged fashion, it doesn't make it safer or is it more dangerous for the fighters? But it's a perception and it's, you know, this goes back to athletic commissions and everything. It's crazy. Hasn't MMA and UFC transcended perceptions. I wish.