Joe Rogan gets honest about Alex Pereira's success in the UFC, explaining why many single-discipline specialists fail in MMA

Joe Rogan spoke about Alex Pereira's UFC career while talking about other single-discipline specialists in the organization. Pereira, a former Glory two-division kickboxing world champion, seamlessly transitioned to MMA in October 2015.

His success comes from his ability to dictate exchanges on the feet since every fight begins with striking exchanges in most cases. This keeps his opponents from exploiting the Brazilian's ground game.

However, the opposite is observed to be true for fighters with a grappling-heavy approach. Rogan pointed to Ryan Hall, whose elite jiu-jitsu skills weren’t enough against world-class strikers like Ilia Topuria. Without strong standup fundamentals, submission specialists often find themselves overwhelmed before they can bring the fight to their world.

Speaking about single-discipline specialists in the UFC on episode #2292 of The Joe Rogan Experience, he said:

"When you see his [Hall] style, the problem with his style, in my opinion, is it's so jiu-jitsu heavy that he's vulnerable when he's fighting world-class strikers. Like, Ilia Topuria smashed him. Yeah. And it was a horrible, horrible knockout. And it's because Ilia's a legit Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belt but also, like, way more technical on the feet. And when you're fighting a guy who's just—any one mistake you make in striking, it is a concussion. Any one mistake—boom!"

Rogan added:

"You can kind of be a specialist if you're a striker. A striker, like, there [are] few guys that can pull it off if they're really strong and they have good takedown defense. Like Pereira is the best example, right? Two-division world champion kickboxer comes over, dominates, becomes a two-division UFC champion as a striker because every fight starts standing up."

Check out Joe Rogan's comments below (42:20):

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Joe Rogan talks about Alex Pereira's knockout power

Joe Rogan believes Alex Pereira is one of the most terrifying knockout artists in combat sports.

During a recent episode of The Joe Rogan Experience with comedian Michael Kosta, the UFC color commentator recalled Pereira’s fight against Jason Wilnis. During the fight, a head kick from Pereira dropped Wilnis, but instead of stopping the fight, the referee let it continue.

Moments later, Pereira ended the fight brutally with a flying knee. Speaking about the finish, Rogan said:

"Let me show you one of the greatest examples of that [a knockout which looks like a carcrash]. Alex Pereira, a two-division Glory world champion... He’s like the most destructive kickboxer in the history of the sport. Then he came to the UFC, became a two-division UFC champion...But he hits this guy [Wilnis] with a head kick and drops him, and you can tell this guy's f*cked but because it's kickboxing, they give him a standing eight count. Dust his gloves off, ‘You okay? Come forward.’ Then he gets hit with a flying knee on the chin and is just sent into the shadow realm. It didn’t need to happen that way."

Check out Joe Rogan's comments below (47:00):