While Joe Rogan enhances the viewing experience for any UFC event that he is involved with, there's no doubting that at times he can get a bit too excited.
It seems mad that for someone who has such a platform to speak to millions, multiple times a week, and having done so much commentary for the UFC, that one yarn about Ronda Rousey comes back to haunt him so regularly.
Rogan famously said of Rousey ahead of one of her fights:
You know we always like to use that term 'once in a lifetime'... Once in a lifetime does not apply to Ronda Rousey. It's once ever, in human history. There's never been a woman like her. Her ability to, not just beat great fighters, but destory them. She's like a superhero. I mean she really is a freak of existence.
When Ronda Rousey leaves the sport you may never see someone like her again, not just in mixed martial arts, but in any sport.
He also elaborated on his podcast, claiming that Rousey could defeat half of the male bantamweights on the UFC roster at the time.
When Rousey famously lost to Holly Holm (who has lost the three consecutive fights that followed), the online reaction was so fierce because of the things that had been said in the build-up, not only by Rogan but by Dana White, and many of Rousey's fans.
But Rogan took a lot of stick, and speaking on the latest episode of the Joe Rogan Experience he admitted that what he had said about Rousey was over the top, and that her fall from grace has a silver lining that people aren't talking about her in the way they once were, himself included.
I’m not happy that Ronda Rousey lost but in a way, it makes things easier because there was a bunch of f**kin’ people going, ‘Oh yeah, what about Ronda Rousey?” And I made the mistake saying - hyperbole. I’m the master of hyperbole, I exaggerate all the time - I was like, ‘She could probably beat half the men bantamweights in the UFC.’
That’s definitely not true. I shouldn’t have said it at the time, now it’s definitely not true. She could beat a few that aren’t good outside the sport. Look, if she gets guys on the ground she could f**k a lot of people up. Her Judo is 100 percent legit, her armbars are amongst the best in the business but people were always saying that... Thank god now that she’s lost everyone’s relaxed with that.
Rousey's comeback fight was an even more brutal loss to Amanda Nunes, so the aura of invincibility is well and truly gone. Rousey's MMA career is still an impressive one, and there is absolutely no question that she is a pioneer for women's MMA and the sole reason that women compete in the UFC today, but there are a number of people who are now having to hold their hand up and admit they got carried away.
You can see Rogan's take on events in full from 13.30 onwards in episode #915 below:
