Is Joe Rogan A Racist Commentator?

(Photo by Amanda Edwards/Getty Images for IFL)

Is Joe Rogan racist?

The question might seem pretty crazy.

How could anyone who smokes that much marijuana be racist?

But a few recent incidents have at least made me question the neutrality of Rogan's commentary.

Akiyama vs Belcher

This was a very close fight, and I can understand how someone could have scored the fight for Belcher.

However, I can also understand how the fight could have been scored for Akiyama, especially given the 10 point must system.

Round One was a round clearly controlled by Akiyama. Akiyama was landing the clean and effective strikes for most of the round. The only exception was a single knockdown scored by Belcher.  

If this were a boxing match, that might be enough to steal the round, but this is MMA. Furthermore, late in the round, Akiyama caught a kick, and countering with a right hand to score a knockdown of his own. So while I can see the round being scored for Belcher, I personally think this round was Akiyama's. Fightmetric showed the strikes.

Round Two was a much different round. Akiyama landed a takedown early, and controlled the action while scoring with some ground and pound strikes. This continued for about three minutes. After that, Belcher did land some effective kicks on the feet, But given that he was controlled completely for the first three minutes of the round, it still seems like Akiyama probably won the round.

Round Three was perhaps the best round for Belcher. He landed a ton of leg kicks, jabs, and some crazy superman punches. Akiyama landed less shots by far, was looking tired, and could not see out of his left eye.

However, he did land a knockdown again, of a leg kick, and also had a takedown at the end of the round. This round I gave to Belcher, based on damage and the number of strikes landed.

Based on the logic of an unanswered knockdown scoring a kickboxing round, the round still could have been Akiyama's. I certainly wouldn't have given the round to Akiyama, but it's possible, and seems just as likely to me as giving Round One to Belcher.

So going round by round, I think it could be possible to score the fight 30-27 for either fighter, depending on how heavily you weight ground dominance, knockdowns, leg strikes as compared to head strikes, etc.

Yet all things considered, I think the fight rightly went to Akiyama, 29-28 for Rounds One and Two. This did not stop Rogan from declaring that Belcher was robbed both on the PPV broadcast, and on Twitter.

Certainly I can understand that he might think Belcher actually won the fight, but it was hardly a robbery. In my mind, by declaring the decision a robbery, Rogan devalued and disrespected Akiyama's effort needlessly.

I had to wrack my brain to think of another instance where Rogan had spoiled a fighter's victory in such a way.

I found one though, in the Matt Brown vs Dong Hyun Kim decision.

Another close fight, another victory for an Asian fighter, and notably, another occasion where Joe Rogan fabricated controversy by claiming that the other fighter should have won the fight.

So here are two occasions where Asian fighters have been the victims of Rogan's decision controversies in obviously close fights.

On the other side of the coin, when Caol Uno lost a decision to Spencer Fisher after three close rounds capped off with Uno dominating from the mount, Rogan did not dispute the decision at all when it was Fisher who pulled of the decision.

Really in total, there are the first two cases where Rogan provides a contrasting voice to a tough decision, while in the third case, he inconsistently provides no counter voice when it is the asian fighter on the losing end of the decision.

Not a whole lot of hard evidence, I know, but it does irk me somewhat that people tend to believe everything Joe Rogan says, when he clearly is a subjective person who makes mistakes just like everyone else.

Personally I don't think there is enough evidence to say that Joe Rogan is racist, but he owes it to all competitors not to dishonor them the way he did Akiyama.

***Update***

- Many of you criticized me for calling Rogan racist, despite the fact that I have concluded that he cannot be called racist for these actions.  However, I find it funny that nobody sees the irony of complaining about my opinion, while Rogan's declaration of a supposed robbery is hardly challenged.

Finally, some people have used the fan reaction to the Akiyama win as a sign that Belcher should have won the fight.  This argument is pretty silly considering these are the same fans that consistently chant "USA! USA!" whenever a white guy fights an Asian looking guy.  Heck, it even happened when Jason MacDonald fought Okami, and MacDonald is Canadian.

***Update #2***

It's been a while since I wrote this article. A few days after writing it, I began to feel that this article was a little bit irresponsible.

I don't think at all that Joe Rogan is a racist. He's a fan of fighters of all ethnicities. However, I do think that he does have a bias for particular fighters, and that these biases naturally favor fighters he knows, therefore more-likely domestic fighter, rather than foreign non-english-speaking ones.

To this day, I still think that Rogan should be more careful with his commentary sometimes. Dong Hyun Kim, for example, didn't deserve to get booed after his win over Matt Brown, and I attribute some of the booing after that fight to Joe Rogan's presentation.

I'm leaving the article here to hopefully show my progress as a writer, but hope that you'll forgive me for being a little bit over-zealous in calling out a commentator in such a disrespectful way.

Thanks,

Darren

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