Every fight fan is familiar with longtime UFC commentator Joe Rogan.
Even first-time viewers will instantly recognize Rogan as the host of NBC's Fear Factor and Comedy Central's The Man Show, or perhaps even from his stint as electrician Joe Garelli on the hit '90s NBC sitcom NewsRadio.
Many fans of the UFC assume that Rogan holds his current position in order to assign some sort of Hollywood credibility to the sport—and criticize his explanations of the intricacies of the fight sciences as scripted and uninformed.
What many fans don't realize, however, is that when Rogan launches into a detailed explanation of a failed submission attempt or offers advice on how a fighter should have moved in order to block a strike, he actually knows what he's talking about.
By the age of 15, Joe Rogan was a black belt and the Massachusetts full-contact Tae Kwon Do champion—a title he was awarded for four consecutive years.
By 19, he had won the U.S. Open Championship in the lightweight division, and then went on to defeat both the middleweight and heavyweight champions to earn the Grand Championship.
As his acting career progressed, Rogan was forced to put his martial arts training on the back burner, but he still finds time to keep in shape using a combination of strength training, stretching, yoga, and, of course, martial arts.
In recent years, Rogan has gravitated more towards combat-oriented martial arts—currently holding a brown belt in Brazilian jiujitsu under Eddie Bravo, as well as having cross-trained in Muay Thai for several years.
So the next time you hear Rogan launch into one of his signature rants about a fighter's mistakes in the ring or apparent lack of preparation for a fight, keep in mind that maybe—just maybe—he actually knows what he's talking about.
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