Joe Rogan's Taekwondo Story: Sometimes They Die

The J.Rogan experience. Yeah, it's made me a better driver. Although, one time in a fight, in a martial arts fight, I knocked this guy out. He never got up. And I started thinking that that could be me. Because they took him away to the hospital. And I went back to talk to my instructor. He wasn't there. It was in Anaheim, California. And I was living in Boston. We flew back to Boston after the tournament. And he said to me, I heard you had a really good knockout with this thick Korean accent. And I said, yeah. I go, it was really scary because he never got up. I go, I thought he was dead. And he goes, sometimes they die. And he just walked away. Like, he used to train troops in Vietnam. He was like an intense guy. And I was like, sometimes they die. Holy shit, I'm them. Them is me. Like, I could die. I was 19. And I remember, I never thought about it the same way again. I never thought about hitting someone the same way again. Because it was one of those. But like, sometimes you hit someone. And it's like a perfect shot. Like you hit them, they were running it. He was running toward, he was coming at me. And I kicked him with something called a wheel kick. It has a crazy amount of power. You spin around and you hit someone with the heel of your foot. It's a heart. My heel hurt for days. Jesus. I was limping, walking from hitting his head. Yeah. It was rough. Have you ever been hit in a way that you're like, that could be? No, no, no, no. I've been dropped and I've been rocked and I've definitely been hit. But I've never been knocked unconscious and not like that. That was a bad one. He was like face planted. He was snoring. I've seen a lot of people get knocked out. Have you checked on him recently? I have no idea who he is. Wow. I have no idea what happened to him. You gave him CTE probably. Murdered his whole family at this point. No. 100% he got brain damage. What? 100%. Whoa, Joe. There's no way he didn't. Oh my God. There's no way he didn't. But could that happen to you? Of course it could have happened. Absolutely. Could it happen to you now in the way that you're fighting? I don't do it anymore. I do jujitsu now. Right. But jujitsu is not striking. Jujitsu is not, it's not like kick, kick. And this was not like sparring. This was a fight. This was in the US Nationals. Wow. I was the Massachusetts state champion and he was a champion. I think he was from Illinois. And so he was the Illinois state champion. Did you get like so much pussy back then from winning fights where they're like groupies? No. No, there was no groupies. No? No. I got the opposite of pussy. I was always training. I wasn't doing anything. Oh yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't even have sex with my girlfriend in the dojo. I wouldn't like she. Because it was sacred. Because I used to go. I was teaching there. So like once she was horny and she was trying to hook up with me. Like I was, I had to go up there to do something clean or something. I forget what I had to do. But she was trying to hook. I'm like I can't. I was like no, we can't do this here. This is never going to happen here. Which is like I would fuck her in an alleyway. I would fuck her on a bus if no one was looking. But not at the dojo. Not there. No. It's actually in Korean it's called dojang. They would call it dojang. But no, I didn't get any pussy. I mean other than my girlfriend at the time. And then when you started comedy like so much. Yeah. Dude, it's crazy. That was the crazy thing. It's like all of a sudden girls actually like me. Like instead of me liking them and them rejecting me. Because I was basically a loser. You know even though I was like a successful martial artist. I had no money and no future prospects. And there was no promise to me. You know. It's like where's this guy going?