Joe Rogan Looks Back at His First UFC Appearance

Hello freak bitches. You pulled me in buddy. I was in Los Angeles and I got a call from my manager and it was essentially saying, alright, there's this thing that we got an offer for. I'm sure you're not going to want to do this, but... My friend Jeff Susman. What a pitch. Mine as well. And now here we are many, many years later. That was UFC 12 in 1997 and Bob Myrowitz was the president and owner of... Did you just give him the finger? How dare you? Is that what that was? No, I was picking my... Bob Myrowitz was the owner and Campbell McLaren. What was your official title? I was the exact producer, co-creators, what they call me now. I E-P'd the shows and was the head of programming for the company. And you were there for UFC 1. I was there for .01. Look how young I was. Oh my boy. I was like a little... See my up there on the screen? I was a scrappy little youngster when I was working for you guys. What happened? I became an old man. You know, you can gain years and you still can look okay because you look like a fighter to me. You look more like a fighter now than when you started. Well, I didn't lift weights then. That's why. I started doing jujitsu like right before I did that show. But back then I was just doing kickboxing. No weightlifting ever. Once I started doing jujitsu and getting manhandled, I started to put some meat on. This is ridiculous. I'm tired of getting raped. Well the Gracie's, here's the pledge they made to me. They go, you know, Campbell comes starting Brazilian jujitsu, Gracie jujitsu with the family. We promised not to break your ribs the first couple of times. That was the promise? I was like, that's it? That's what I get for putting you on TV? Nobody writes on free. Yeah, you don't get good at jujitsu by not getting your ass kicked. Everybody gets their ass kicked. It's impossible to not get your ass kicked and get good at jujitsu. You have to do it. You have to experience it. Do you think you're good at jujitsu? I got a couple black belts. As far as like regular people, yeah, I'm good. As far as like really good jujitsu people, I'm not that good.