Joe Rogan holds no ill-will toward Ronda Rousey.
Rousey took a shot at Rogan by discrediting him as the UFC’s longtime color commentator, saying “he’s not an expert” and reducing him to being “a fan with an audience.” Rogan’s response to the UFC Hall of Famer was very understanding.
“She’s a legend. I mean, I’ve got nothing but love and respect for that lady,” Rogan said of Rousey in a recent episode of his “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast on Spotify. “What she did was so impressive. She was the first legitimate female superstar. She made the UFC female division possible. If it wasn’t for her – Dana (White) was very open about never having female UFC fighters. It took someone that was that dynamic, that was that special to open his eyes and go, ‘You know what? I think this lady is a star.’
“When she said I wasn’t an expert, everyone’s entitled to their opinion. You’ve got to understand why she thinks like that because she has a champion mentality. ‘You never fought. You aren’t sh*t.’ I get it. It’s totally fine.”
Rousey previously expressed her disappointment in Rogan and MMA media as a whole, claiming that they turned on her after back-to-back knockout losses to Holly Holm and Amanda Nunes.
“I never had a bad thing to say about Ronda. I still don’t,” Rogan added. “I understand her mentality. I mean, she’s a champion-minded person. She’s like, ‘You’re f*cking with me or against me. It’s me against the world.’ She doesn’t have a chip on her shoulder. She’s got a forest. She’s got a whole forest on her shoulder, but that’s why she was so good. And we’re lucky she was a woman. If that lady was a man, she’d be Genghis Khan. She’d be f*cking taking over the world. She’s an animal.”
