Okay, I don’t mind Joe Rogan at all, he explains things pretty well for an uneducated MMA viewer like myself (except for the fact that I’m getting really tired of him saying “rocked” every f**king time someone takes it on the chin…50 times a fight!!!).
His partner though drives me mental! He doesn’t really contribute that much…he says the same stupid catch phrase all the time out of nowhere (“So you wanna be an ultimate fighter?”). Fine, drop the phrase during the TV show, but not during a Randy Couture fight!! It makes no sense!!
Sorry for the senseless rant…but it rattles me and I was wondering if he drove anyone else nuts?
Goldberg has no idea what’s going on. He used to incorrectly correlate (on a regular basis) a fighter’s reach based on their height. A 6’1" guy vs. a 6’3" would have him saying that Guy #2 had a 2 inch reach advantage. The UFC finally fixed this for him, and started listing the reach of the fighters
I feel bad for him honestly. He just doesn’t know the sport, beside dropping ines like “that ground and pound is Couture 101!” Rogan does a great job for “newbies” who don’t know what’s going on, and is way more entertaining than Mike Goldberg.
The Fight Network in Canada does the worst voice overs of the K1 Grand Prix annoucing for example " that was a vicious leg kick to the head!!!" As opposed to what an arm kick to the head dumb ass.
I;ve been told I have a wicked bad “arm-kick to the head”. Seriously though…where the hell do they find these guys? Is it that hard? Aren’t there enough fighter’s out there who can string 3 words together to comment intelligently on a fight?
I think Rogan does a good job. He was a martial arts something or other when he was younger so he understands the way these fighters are wired.
If you’re looking for former fighter insight, then look no further than Rogan. He takes his own training pretty seriously and has bought into the whole “walk the walk, talk the talk” mentality.
As for the other dude, he’s generally white noise but still an important facet of the dynamic used in today’s sports commentating.
I’m just happy that they don’t show these fights from one camera angle and only one announcer like sports used to be broadcast back in the 60’s.
[quote]Creidem wrote:
Aren’t there enough fighter’s out there who can string 3 words together to comment intelligently on a fight?
[/quote]
If the best Pride can do is Frank Trigg saying “Mr. CroCop,” then, no, there really aren’t.
I remember when the UFC had Goldberg and Blatnik and thought that was a decent combo. IIRC Quadros and whoever they had with him for the really early ones weren’t too bad.
Don Wilson and Eddie Bravo for KOTC was absolutely miserable though. Bravo wasn’t bad, but Wilson really dumbed himself down for that role.
bring in bas rutten for entertainment, have mills lane for a ref (lets get it on!!!) and rumbleman for an announcer (Lets get readddddddddddddddddddddddddy toooooooooooooooo rummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmble).
Sometimes Rogan is downright irritating with some of his commentary, that last UFC he did was pretty damn good though. My favorite commentary of all-time was when they had Tank Abbott sitting on the side talking shit…I can’t remember which UFC this was, but I think it was around 11 or so, they had some dude fighting that was missing his right pectoral muscle and when the guy starts losing, Tank throws out,“I’ll be he wishes he had that right pectorial right about now.” Later on he’s like,“I don’t understand all this hugging and shaking hands after the fight, I came here to fight, not play grab ass with my opponent.”
I don’t know why they can’t find color commentary from guys who actually understand the sport, Bas does a decent job in Pride, but it still isn’t as good as boxing’s commentators who tend to display an intimate understanding of the sport.
“Rumbleman” did some of the early UFCs and his brother has been doing them ever since.
I was thinking about the “leg kick” thing - I wonder if they’re referring to a Thai roudhouse (with the shin) rather than a kickboxing/karate/TKD style roundhouse (with the foot).
Trivia - Tra Telligman was the guy Tnak was talking about - one of the early KOTCs explained that he was in a car accident when he was like 3 and the pec was torn off. He showed up recently in UFC as a can for Sylvia.
I think the UFC did want to make Tank their resident trash-talker and sometime announcer, until his excuses got even more painful to experience than his fights.
Strangely enough, I feel Ken Shamrock has been the best commentator in MMA thus far. Whenever he guest commentates he does a fantastic job. He has the intimate knowledge of the sport that seems to be lacking, and comes off nothing like his ring/WWE persona.
