A celebrity UFC fight between Joe Rogan and Wesley Snipes was not just a rumour and nearly came to fruition with the UFC commentator explaining how close he came to fighting him in an MMA clash.
Rogan almost fought Snipes in the UFC after the 'Blade' star was in trouble with the IRS and his agent approached the UFC about a one-off Octagon bout to put on a "crazy pay-per-view fight."
Snipes appeared set to face fellow actor Jean-Claude Van Damme, but Campbell McClaren, a UFC official at the time, wasn't keen on the 'JCVD' angle and had another name in the form of Rogan in mind.
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"He's like 'nobody's gonna pay to see you and Jean-Claude Van Damme fight'", Rogan recalled on his podcast in 2016.
"You have to fight someone who was 'current.' So he said 'would you fight Joe Rogan? And he said 'Yup, let's do it.' So they came to me, and I went 'How much money?' And then they started talking, then I said 'OK, let's see what happens.'"
The match-up, though, failed to happen but Rogan believes he would have choked him out.
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"I just didn't think that anybody who didn't know any jiu-jitsu could learn it quick," he added. "I was already a brown belt by then, and I just knew what happened when a brown belt fights a white belt. I just can't imagine.
"I know how to stand up, and even if I wasn't good at striking anymore like I was when I was a kid, I'm good enough to know what to not do and where to not be. And if I get a hold of someone who doesn't know jiu-jitsu, I'm pretty sure I'm choking the f**k out of them.
"He's never wrestled, he never had a competitive martial arts match, whether it's a kickboxing fight or karate fight. I was like 'I'm gonna choke the f**k out of this guy. I'm gonna get a hold of him, and I'm gonna squeeze the s**t out of him, and they're gonna give me a lot of money, and he's probably not even gonna get hurt.' That's what I thought."
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