Joe Rogan: White House UFC Event Was “Not Once-In-A-Lifetime” Experience, But “Once-Ever”
Podcast host Joe Rogan reflects on the UFC event last weekend at the White House, which he called “the greatest night of fights of all time” and the “wildest experience that I’ve ever had.”
JOE ROGAN: All my fears of the weather getting in the way of the fights were null. It didn’t mean anything. And then there was this long ceremonial thing where they had jets fly over and they played music. So by the time we got to the actual fights, it was dark out, perfect. The weather was perfect. So that wasn’t an issue at all. And it was just the magnitude of the event. I know people saw it on television and it looked insane. But the magnitude of the event, being there live. So there’s the event that’s taking place on the lawn of the White House, and that has 4,000-plus people. The main event. The actual UFC. So there’s a bunch of military guys that are standing up in the back. There’s like a thousand of those and there’s 3,000-plus that are seated. All these people are seated. But then behind that, not that far, like 100 yards, 200 yards, whatever it is. I guess it’s more than that, maybe 300 yards. There’s the Ellipse. The Ellipse has 85,000 people who got in for free — like in the whole White House ecosphere, whatever it is. In this area, they have giant screens set up and they have huge speakers and sound. So 85,000 fans are watching the fights live on the screens, and they can see the lights of this claw dome in the distance, and they can see the White House in the distance, where the fights are taking place. But they’re watching it on massive screens with commentary, and it was insane. And you could hear them roar. So you hear the crowd from here, and then you hear 85,000 people in the distance. It was insane. It was insane. Just the magnitude of it was insane. Unlike anything else I’ve ever done. I mean, I’m a hyperbolic individual, and I’m always like, “This is the greatest. This is awesome.” That was the wildest experience that I’ve ever had in my 20-whatever years of calling combat sports. There’s nothing even close. Nothing even close. It was the greatest night of fights of all time. And it was the only night in the history of the sport where every single fight ended by knockout. Every single one. Seven fights. Seven fights. Every one of them ended by knockout. Which never happens. Which is unprecedented. It was like the perfect experience for anybody that had never watched the UFC before to see it that way at the White House like that. I mean, it was nuts. A huge experience for the fans that got to be there in the Ellipse. I saw videos. These guys, they were having so much fun. It’s like everyone’s in there for free. You don’t have to pay for the tickets. There’s 85,000 people out there. They’re all screaming and cheering, and the drinks are flowing, and it was wild. I mean, just absolutely wild. … People would look at you like, “You’re working for a cage-fighting organization? Why would you do that?” Cut to 25 years later, it’s on the lawn of the White House, and it is one of the most watched sporting events in the history of the world. I don’t know what the total overall views are as of now, but I know that it was well over – I think it was 150 million just by Monday. … I talked a bunch of people into going that didn’t want to. Shane Gillis was thinking about not going. I’m like, “Bro, you got to go. It’s going to be epic. It’s going to be a once-ever thing. Not a once-in-a-lifetime. Once in anybody’s lifetime. It’s never happened before. It’s probably never going to happen again.” But that’s something you have to see and experience. And so many people are trying to make it a partisan thing. They’re mad at people for being there. Like, “Oh, you support Trump.” It’s a [expletive] fight at the White House. Doesn’t mean you endorse foreign policy. Shut the [expletive] up. Just please stop. And again, it’s this thing, the ego thing, where people just want so badly, and on both sides for sure. The right celebrates this as a win for masculinity and patriotism and all these different things. Like, okay, settle down. Everybody settle down. We should all be together.
