Joe Rogan blown away by what podcast guest told him about moment between Mike Tyson and Muhammad Ali
Joe Rogan has interviewed some of the biggest names in combat sports on his podcast.
Past Joe Rogan Experience guests include the likes of Tyson Fury, Francis Ngannou and Terrence Crawford.
And the UFC commentator has even interviewed former heavyweight world champion and boxing icon Mike Tyson on his show.
But Rogan never had the opportunity to meet the legendary Muhammad Ali before the heavyweight great died in 2016.
One of his recent guests, however, did. And he stunned Rogan with a story of meeting both Ali and Tyson at the same time while backstage at a Julio Cesar Chavez fight.
Josh Brolin, the Hollywood actor who has starred in the Marvel mega-hit franchise The Avengers, was a guests on the JRE last year. Evidently a huge boxing fan, the 56-year-old told Rogan about the time he met the two boxing greats.
“I actually went to go see Julio Cesar Chavez fight, and that’s when I met [Mike] Tyson in the green room, and I met, at the same time, Muhammad Ali,” Brolin said.
“Wow… that’s a heavy moment,” Rogan replied, in awe.
“As a boxing fan, that was a real moment,” Brolin said.
The actor also told a story about the time he attended a Tyson fight when the power-puncher was at his peak. He couldn’t recall the name of Tyson’s opponent on that night, but he clearly remember the way the expression on the fighter’s face changed the second “Iron Mike” entered the ring.
“I went to go see this fight, and Tyson was fighting, and this guy was doing this stuff before, and he had this cut; he had built himself into confidence, and Mike came out afterward,” Brolin said.
“And I watched his face. And I watched that confidence bleed from his face instantaneously.
“He had absolutely lost the fight long before Mike had ever gotten in the ring.”
Tyson returned to in-ring action last year at the age of 58 after a 20-year absence, losing a decision to YouTuber-turned-boxer Jake Paul in an event broadcast live on Netflix.
A former guest on Joe Rogan’s podcast believes the show is partly responsible for the rise of disinformation online.
American archaeologist Flint Dibble appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience last year to have a live debate with Graham Hancock.
Hancock, the former foreign correspondent for The Economist, is a proponent of a widely discredited pseudo archeological theory that there once existed an advanced Ice Age civilisation that was destroyed in a global cataclysm.
Across a four-and-a-half-hour episode that has been viewed more than six million times on YouTube, Flint debated Hancock and sought to disprove his theory.
And the archaeologist has since reported having mixed feelings about appearing on the show.
“After doing it, I have started growing an audience interested in hearing about 21st century archaeology,” Dibble told The Times. “On the other hand, I have also been targeted for nonstop trolling from believers of all forms of fake archaeology, from lost civilisations like Atlantis to mysterious aliens or ancient supertechnology.”
Rogan later criticised Dibble in a subsequent episode, saying, “People like Flint just out-and-out lie.”
Dibble responded by posting an “open letter” to Rogan on his own YouTube channel.
Rogan began his podcast in 2009 and it has since grown to become one of the biggest and most listened-to shows in the genre, with 19 million YouTube subscribers and averaging more than 11 million downloads per episode.
In 2020, Rogan signed a deal with Spotify worth a reported $100 million, giving the streaming giant exclusive rights to the podcast. And the UFC commentator renewed his Spotify agreement last year for $250 million.
The influence of Rogan and his podcast is such that he is credited with having played a significant role in Donald Trump’s re-election as US president after having the politician appear on his show last year and they officially endorsing the Republican candidate.
Flint told The Times he believes Rogan has played a hand in the recent rise of disinformation, in light of Meta scrapping fact-checking measures and Trump’s second term in the White House.
“We should expect more misinformation,” he said, “and more attempts by loud conspiracists to cancel experts and scholars in our world.”
Joe Rogan has one non-negotiable rule on his podcast as former guest makes ‘extraordinary’ claim
Joe Rogan has one non-negotiable rule on his podcast that only relates to him, it has been claimed.
Rogan’s podcast, ‘The Joe Rogan Experience’, launched back in 2009 and has since become one of the most popular and lucrative podcasts in the world.
He signed a new $250 million contract with Spotify – previously the podcast’s exclusive home – to air the show on other platforms from February 2024, as per The Wall Street Journal.
Rogan invites a range of guests onto the show from the worlds of popular culture, sport and even politics, with incoming US President Donald Trump making an appearance in October prior to the 2024 election.
That is, according to Spotify, the most popular episode of the podcast ever broadcast, with comedian Adam Sandler, Elon Musk and WWE legend The Rock listed as other top guests.
The Times noted how Rogan ‘thinks he should be able to say anything, at any time’ – a rule that has been utilised throughout the podcast’s history and is a reason why it is so popular for some viewers.
Louis Theroux, a previous guest of the show, labelled Rogan’s success as ‘extraordinary’ in a 2020 interview with British GQ, adding: “He’s a powerhouse … what you see with him is the ability to stand outside conventional political alignments, and outside any sort of structure that will inhibit him from speaking to whom he wants to speak to and saying what he wants to say.”
Another previous guest, the American cosmologist and author Brian Keating, once named the most surprising thing he noticed about the UFC commentator after appearing on the podcast.
“He comes off as a character but can be deadly serious,” Keating began.
“When it [the show] was all over, we posed for a few pictures, and then he left for the bathroom. Which was, I realised in hindsight, his form of Irish goodbye! I didn’t see him again.”
Joe Rogan has been told by a UFC star ‘to never ask one question’ again ahead of his title defence at UFC 311.
UFC’s first pay-per-view card of 2025 is just days away as the famed Octagon sets up shop in Los Angeles, California, for UFC 311.
Not one but TWO blockbuster UFC title fights feature on the card, with Islam Makhachev putting his UFC lightweight title on the line against former foe Arman Tsarukyan.
And UFC bantamweight king Merab Dvalishvili defends his championship against Umar Nurmagomedov – cousin of UFC legend Khabib Nurmagomedov.
Ahead of making the first defence of his UFC bantamweight belt, Dvalishvili has warned Rogan not to ask him one question again.
He doesn’t want to be asked about potentially fighting teammate Aljamain Sterling, having previously been questioned about a possible showdown.
Speaking on the Verse Us with Eric Nicksick podcast, Dvalishvili said: “I said don’t ask me this question [about fighting Sterling] during press conference or media day. I was like I have to win first [against Aldo] and Aljo already has a fight… And when Joe Rogan asked me again and Aljo is there, ‘Hey, are you going to fight Aljo?’ And like I said, Please don’t ask me this question anymore.”
Teammates Dvalishvili and Sterling competed alongside each other in the same division when ‘Aljo’ was the 135lbs title holder.
Amid the American’s title reign, Dvalishvili knocked off plenty of top contenders, including Marlon Moraes, Jose Aldo, Petr Yan and Henry Cejudo.
But Dvalishvili eventually fought for UFC gold when Sterling was defeated by Sean O’Malley.
The Georgian dethroned O’Malley of the UFC bantamweight title at UFC 306.
As for Sterling, he has since moved up in weight to the featherweight division, where he has gone 1-1 in his two fights at 145lbs.
He outpointed Calvin Kattar at UFC 300 before losing a decision to Movsar Evloev at UFC 310 last month.
Sterling is set to remain at featherweight while Dvalishvili holds the UFC bantamweight title.
‘Surprised’ Joe Rogan podcast guest reveals what happens when recording his show
Jonathan Zimmerman, a professor of education and history at the University of Pennsylvania and the author of ‘Free Speech and Why You Should Give a Damn’, appeared on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in August 2021.
Here, he spoke about education, marriage and work, as well as his experiences as a Peace Corps volunteer in Nepal in the early 1980s.
After appearing on the show, Zimmerman opened up on his experience in a column for the Philadelphia Inquirer – and it was a fascinating insight into what goes on behind the curtain.
“Last spring, I was invited to appear on Joe Rogan’s show. My first reaction was surprise: Why me? I’m not a comedian (like Rogan), or a martial-arts fighter (ditto), or a celebrity who likes to push the envelope (Elon Musk, Jordan Peterson),” began Zimmerman, who wrote the piece in 2022.
“I am just a nerdy college professor who writes books that very few people choose to read. (My mom says they’re very good.)”
The 63-year-old described the building Rogan tapes in as a “low-slung” and “nondescript” structure on the outskirts of Austin, Texas. “The show doesn’t pay guests, but it did fly me down there,” Zimmerman added.
“When I arrived, I was told that Rogan was caught in the city’s notorious traffic. ‘The Californians are clogging the roads,’ one of his assistants groused. I pointed out that Rogan himself had recently moved to Austin from California. We both laughed.
After speaking about getting a COVID-19 test by a nurse Rogan employs, Zimmerman moved on to praising the host, who arrived late after a workout had “gone a little longer than usual”.
Zimmerman added: “He’s also really nice, which is something you might not pick up from the tweets and headlines. Every controversial remark — about COVID-19, or race, or gender — probably makes you think, Wow, what a callous jerk.
“I can assure you he isn’t. He thanked me for flying down, asked about my family, and joked about the Austin traffic. We chatted for a few minutes while he waited for his own COVID-19 test results — negative, thank God — and then he ushered me into his studio, which looks pretty much as you’d expect: dark tones, comfy chairs, and a big neon sign with his name on it.”
Zimmerman would later describe Rogan as a “genuinely curious person”, which is “something else you don’t pick up from social-media shock reports” but criticised him for spreading “harmful” misinformation on COVID-19.
“He knows what to ask. And he knew what he didn’t know, which was the most refreshing thing of all,” Zimmerman added.
“I realize that he has been far too credulous with some of his guests, buying their misinformation wholesale instead of critically assessing it. But I really enjoyed our conversation. It was an all-too-rare pleasure to converse with someone who actually wanted to listen instead of just talk.”
He added: “I work at a university, so I’m surrounded by colleagues who often think they know everything. Rogan makes no such pretense. When we were discussing Nepal and I mentioned “untouchable” castes, it was clear he hadn’t heard the term. So he simply asked me what it meant, which is the only way we learn anything.”
