The best and worst from UFC 223

#2 Worst: Joe Rogan has a bad night

Joe Rogan had a questionable night on commentary

UFC colour commentator Joe Rogan has been a staple of UFC broadcasts now for well over a decade – he made his debut with the company at UFC 17! – but while he has provided plenty of entertainment over the years, his tendency to try to sell a certain narrative for a fight – regardless of the action taking place in the cage – is sometimes jarring to the point of distraction.

Last night was one of those nights. It started during the Magomedsharipov/Bochniak fight, when it felt like Rogan was simply overselling the skills of the Dagestani even if it was a tremendous showing from him. In the Namajunas/Jedrzejczyk fight it seemed like he was over-valuing the work of Rose early in the fight and Joanna later in the fight, and in the main event, he bafflingly decided to play down the striking of Khabib Nurmagomedov despite ‘The Eagle’ clearly using his jab to dominate a supposedly better striker in Al Iaquinta.

With the fantastic Jimmy Smith now aboard the UFC and the likes of Paul Felder and Dan Hardy improving all the time as colour commentators, after last night I can’t be the only one thinking that the end of the road for Rogan can’t be far off. It was jarring when the UFC canned Mike Goldberg at the end of 2016 but now he’s barely missed and I could see the same thing for Rogan at some point in the future too.