Commentator Joe Rogan Blasts Dana White’s Huge Mistake: “I Think the UFC Messed Up”
Joe Rogan thinks the UFC made a huge mistake by getting into the Power Slap business instead of kickboxing.
Dana White and Co. officially launched Power Slap in 2022, starting with a series of events inside The APEX in Las Vegas. Since then, the slap-fighting promotion has made appearances in both Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.
Of course, not everyone is a fan of the slap fighting, including former UFC referee ‘Big’ John McCarthy, who dubbed the “sport” as nothing more than “sanctioned brain trauma.” Joe Rogan tends to agree with that assessment, though he was a little more cautious with his words, simply stating that Power Slap was not his cup of tea.
Recently, Rogan shared his frustration over the UFC’s decision to launch Power Slap instead of kickstarting its own kickboxing promotion.
“I think the UFC f*cked up when they went with slap fighting,” Rogan said on a recent Fight Companion podcast. “I’ve been telling them forever, ‘You guys should get into kickboxing.’ If you only like standup fights, it’s not like the old days of kickboxing where they were boring. The knockouts are f*cking crazy.
“Kickboxing with MMA gloves in a cage would be giant. Just have a striking-only segment of the UFC. Glory’s got some elite fighters. I watch Glory all the time. It’s f*cking exciting, but nobody’s watching it. Nobody knows who these people are.”
Dana White set to launch boxing promotion in 2025
While the UFC may have no plans to launch a kickboxing promotion, Dana White is jumping headfirst into the world of boxing.
In March, Dana White announced that he was teaming with Turki Alalshikh, Chairman of the General Entertainment Authority in Saudi Arabia, to launch a brand-new boxing organization. The yet-to-be-named promotion will feature “a highly structured system to develop new talent from around the world,” as well as access for all boxers to the UFC Performance Institutes in Las Vegas, Mexico City, and Shanghai, and “TKO’s production, media, and promotional expertise.”
