Joe Rogan wasn't in Kallang, Singapore to call UFC 275, so fans never got to hear his take on the insane Jiri Prochazka vs. Glover Teixeira fight. Until now.
Rogan had UFC fighter Eyrk Anders on an MMA Show edition of The Joe Rogan Experience, and the discussion turned to the recent light heavyweight title fight between Prochazka and Teixeira. Rogan said:
"Jiri Prochazka, Jiri just tapped out Glover. Like who the f*** saw that coming, you know ... Glover's 42 years old and almost won that fight. All he had to do was play it safe in that fifth round and he would have won that fight."
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"The Jiri Prochazka vs. Glover Teixeira fight is the kind of fight that makes fans. If you've never watched MMA before and you watch that crazy f***ing fight? Whew. ... Glover took a lot of chances, like dove on guillotines and ended up on the bottom and it didn't work out, there was a lot going on in that fight. That was not a 'play it safe' fight. That was a wild fight."
Watch Eryk Anders and Joe Rogan discuss Prochazka vs. Teixeira below:
Prochazka vs. Teixeira was a back-and-forth war that saw both men gut it out for 24 hard minutes, until Prochazka snatched a last-minute rear-naked choke submission on Teixeira. Given Teixeira's jiu jitsu credentials, it was wild to see the submission work, especially with everything on the line.
Scorecards from after the fight had Teixeira ahead, so it was a legit come-from-behind victory for Prochazka.
Joe Rogan was not a fan of Jiri Prochazka "fake quitting" with taps at UFC 275
While Joe Rogan is clearly impressed with Jiri Prochazka's fighting ability, he thinks the Czech fighter is a "super odd dude." He told Eryk Anders:
"You see him working out in the woods, he ties pads to trees and he's kicking and punching trees? Very strange. Seems like a super odd dude. But he's doing something that's not wise, though. He was patting Glover, saying 'Good job, you're doing a good job,' and [referee] Marc Goddard was telling him 'You're playing a dangerous f***ing game because it seems like you're tapping.' Like what are you doing? That's a tap! You can't do that."
"He was congratulating and encouraging his opponent ... it's interesting because you really can't do that. If Glover thought that was a tap ... that right there was a f***ing tap! You can't do that because 'Ow, I'm injured, my ribs are broken, stop!' It's not a position where you'd normally see someone tap, but who knows what the f*** is going on. That is tapping. You can't just fake quit. That's like fake quitting."
Fighters have been knocked out after thinking they felt a tap and relaxing their hold on an opponent. Even a second of confusion is enough to result in a change of position or a submission escape or a finish. If the referee at UFC 275 had misread Prochazka's taps, it could have cost him the fight. It's definitely not the smartest thing to be doing in the middle of a cage fight.