Joe Rogan - MMA is Weird

We had a guy on Fear Factor once that was a professional rodeo guy and his shoulder was like a topographic map. He had so many scars in his shoulder and he told me his shoulder would just pop out. He could just pop it out left and right. Just being destroyed. Like gored by bulls. Falling and getting it ripped apart. Riding bulls. Yeah, I just don't get that. It just wasn't working anymore. I mean he had a bunch of surgeries and they tried to screw it back together and tighten things down. But it was just destroyed. I'm sure a bull rider would look at free soloing and be like, what a crazy dude. Everybody looks at another sport and they're like, that's great. And honestly, I look at fighting and I'm like, that seems totally outrageous. I'm like, why would you want some other dude beating you to death in a cage? I'm like, that's crazy. It is outrageous. It is outrageous. But if you can get good enough or you can avoid most of the damage. Yeah. And then to land the damage. It's kind of the same. But even landing the damage to a certain extent, you're like, oh, you're hurting somebody else for the pleasure of the crowd. You're like, that's kind of messed up. Yeah. No, you know. It's a very weird feeling. Knocking someone out is one of the weirdest feelings. Because part of you is happy that it's not you. But part of you is like looking down at that guy that's just got flatlined. And you're like, whoa, that could have been me. How much do fighters like hold back? You know, because I feel like you kind of have to like go to the death. But then if you actually like punch somebody so hard, they died or something. I mean, obviously, you'd feel horrible, right? Well, you don't hold back at all. Well, that's what I'm saying. But so it's like you don't hold back at all. But then if you actually killed somebody, wouldn't you feel horrible? It's very rare that someone dies in mixed martial arts, believe it or not. Well, yeah, no, I mean, I know that. But it's possible. It's definitely possible. And it has happened. And it's sort of like... It has happened very, very rarely in mixed martial arts, never in the UFC. But in boxing, it happens more often. And one of the reasons why it happens more often in boxing is you're only punching. In MMA, you're taking people down. Yeah, people are tapping out because they're pinging in weird ways. Yeah. Well, it's also there's more options to defend yourself. You're not just getting battered against the ropes. They're also nowadays much better at stopping a fight when a fighter is clearly compromised, when they're really fucked up. In the old days, they used to let guys just get battered. They used to, you know, in boxing matches. That doesn't sit well with me. I'm just like, ah. But that's why I'm not a fighter. Well, that's the thing about climbing is there's this real elemental appeal to just you and the mountain and its nature and it's beautiful and it's like very peaceful and calm. It's like so different than having thousands of people screaming at you as you punch some guy in the face over and over. Just like, dude, that's just not my scene. Well, did you see the Conor McGregor, Khabib Nurmagomedov fight where there's the big fight outside of the cage? Oh, is that the thing where the guy vaults out of the cage and like starts brawling? I was like, yeah, it's like WWE or whatever. It was like when they start breaking tables over people crazier than that because it was real. Yeah, exactly. I was like, this is totally outrageous. But what's funny is it became chaos because a fight erupted outside of the parameters of the fight. It was just more fighting. Yeah, you'd seen fighting. Yeah, like this is what we paid for. This isn't okay. Right. Everybody's like fighting in the cage. Fine. This is lovely. But he gets out of the cage. Oh my God. He's out in the wild. He's out in the world fighting. Isn't that kind of messed up? Yeah, it's definitely messed up. You're like, he's a professional fighter. He's fighting. Like that's what he does. It's weird. Listen, this is coming from someone who's been involved in this my whole life. It's weird. I absolutely see all the arguments against it. And yet you still want to go train or punch people in the face. Well, I don't punch anybody in the face anymore. I still choke people. But