"Call in Ariel Helwani" - Joe Rogan rips into WGN anchor for thinking Belal Muhammad was a street fighter
In a recent episode of "The Joe Rogan Experience," UFC welterweight champion Belal Muhammad recalled that an anchor from WGN America recently called him a "champion of street fighting." He said:
"I did an interview with Chicago news, and the lady was like, she had no idea who I was. She was like 'You’re the champion of street fighting, right?"
To this, Rogan replied with:
"For you [Muhammad] to reach the pinnacle in the greatest combat sport ever, and for this lady to go, 'You're the champion of street fighting", and you're on f*cking TV? That's so crazy. Why can't they bring in an expert. There's so many people who could have interviewed you... Call in [veteran MMA journalist] Ariel Helwani. Call in somebody. There's somebody out there that can do this. This is crazy."
He added:
"It's just disrespectful, you know. It's just a bummer. But people don't get it yet. May more people get it now than they ever got it before. When I first started commentary for the UFC was in '97. When I first started doing backstage interviews, and people were acting like I was doing porn (laughs)."
Here's a clip of the interaction, as posted by Full Violence on X:
Joe Rogan on Francis Ngannou vs Tyson Fury in MMA: "will not last one round"
Punching his point further about how so many people don't get MMA compared to other mainstream sports like boxing, Joe Rogan cited Francis Ngannou vs Tyson Fury. He explained how an MMA fight between the former UFC heavyweight champion and unified boxing world heavyweight champ would be so much different from their closely contested boxing match last year.
Rogan said (via Joe Rogan Experience):
"We all know, that look, I'm a huge boxing fan, boxing's amazing, I love boxing, but we all know if Francis Ngannou and Tyson Fury had a FIGHT fight, that sh*t will not last one round... Like an MMA fight. Boxing is a sport. MMA is the sport of fighting...I'm not saying boxing is not hard to do...but MMA is harder."
Here's the full podcast (quote at 19:17)