Joe Rogan has unique 'contract clause' in his UFC deal that stops him from working huge fights
Joe Rogan made the decision following a series of chats with UFC boss Dana White.
Nasir Jabbar
Joe Rogan has a unique 'contract clause' in his UFC deal that stops him from working on some of the biggest fights the MMA promotion has to offer.
Rogan has been part of the UFC furniture since 1997.
He conducted post-fight interviews before moving into the commentary booth, where he has made that role his own.
Over the years, Rogan's workload with the UFC has decreased following a series of conversations with Dana White.
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He no longer works international shows, meaning he only commentates on UFC fights in the US, having decided to stop flying around the globe.
In an old interview from 2016, Rogan said via Bloody Elbow: “I signed for at least one more year. I was on the fence man, I just do too much sh*t. I’m too fucking busy. I don’t know if I’m doing myself or all the other things I do a disservice.
“I had a conversation with Dana, we had a bunch of conversations. What I decided to do was no more international travel. No more flying across the planet.”
Rogan used to travel the world to cover UFC events, including Brazil, where he'd call Anderson Silva's fights.
On flying to Brazil for work, he revealed the pitfalls, adding: "If I go to Brazil that’s five days out of my life... and on top of that there’s the recovery time. The flying fucks with my head. I’m cutting down a lot of events, but I’m doing at-least one more year. It’s a year by year thing."
He continued: "I don’t want anyone to think that I don’t appreciate it or that I don’t know how lucky I am or that I don’t think it’s an amazing jobs. I definitely do. I’m almost too lucky, I have too many amazing jobs."
So, this year alone, Rogan has missed out on commentating Tom Aspinall's destruction of Curtis Blaydes and Belal Muhammad's shock victory over Leon Edwards at UFC 304, which took place in Manchester, England.
He also didn't fly out for UFC 305 in Perth, Australia, as Dricus Du Plessis stopped Israel Adesanya.
And the 57-year-old stayed at home for the UFC 308 card in Abu Dhabi, UAE, where Ilia Topuria knocked out Max Holloway and Khamzat Chimaev submitted Robert Whittaker.
Of course, the US-based pay-per-view cards have provided their fair share of memorable moments this year, most notably the UFC 300 BMF clash between Justin Gaethje and Holloway.