Dana White Explains Joe Rogan’s X-Factor That Sets Him Apart, Unlike Boxing’s Larry Merchant

Published 03/26/2024, 8:46 AM EDT

Most boxing fans will agree that it is a beautiful sport but a dirty business because of its history of terrible, allegedly fixed decisions. Even several instances have seen fighters ducking tough opponents, to the chagrin of fans. All of this has, over time, eroded boxing’s credibility and popularity in the past decades especially.

According to many combat gurus, it is also one of the reasons why the UFC is gaining popularity among fight fans, while also seemingly being the primary reason it exists at all. Dana White has spoken multiple times about how he turned to MMA and built the UFC in part because of his frustration with the sport of boxing, which he used to be a huge fan of. But it wasn’t just the fixed decisions and fighters ducking fights but, surprisingly, Larry Merchant and his ilk.

Dana White reveals why he despises Larry Merchant

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UFC CEO Dana White joined Lex Fridman on his podcast where he talked about how boxing’s commentary the UFC commentary team and expressed his utter disdain for legendary boxing commentators, Larry Merchant, Jim Lampley, and the old HBO Boxing commentators over their negative commentary during fights.

“I can’t stand Larry Merchant… [Jim] Lampley too, you would spend this money for the pay-per-view to watch these people that you idolized, to hear these idiots rip ’em apart while the fight was happening,” he said.

White dislikes the old boxing commentators so much that he asked Lex Fridman to play Mike Tyson‘s entrance for his fight against Francos Botha, where the former heavyweight champion gets ripped by the commentators while he is walking out. The UFC CEO was incensed at this and felt that it ruined the experience for those who had paid money to watch Tyson fight.

“So think about Tyson and how much everybody loved Tyson at the time, and listen to this, listen to this entrance… Imagine, you paid your money to watch Mike Tyson, and you gotta listen to these f**king jerk-offs talk sh** about him the whole way to the ring,” he added.

This inspired the whole commentary and post-fight interview production for the UFC, according to the Las Vegas resident, so that the commentators talk up the fighters and hype them up at the promotion.

White reveals why he chose Joe Rogan and ‘DC’

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This, White explained, was the reason he chose to have Joe Rogan and Daniel Cormier, who had actually been martial artists with the latter being one of the greatest champions in UFC history, and have tremendous respect and admiration for the fighters to interview them in the octagon.

“So you know who goes in there and interviews fighters [for the UFC]? Joe Rogan. Who has trained and done everything and has the utmost respect for the sport and the athletes. Or you got like Daniel Cormier, who was a former world champion himself and has actually been through it, done it, knows,” he told Fridman.

Clearly, Dana White learned a lot from boxing and its mistakes and incorporated these lessons into the UFC, especially when it comes to production. The purists will point out, and with a lot of merit, that the old-school commentators had a very different conception of what it means to be a commentator from the UFC CEO, who wants the commentators to serve as essentially hype-men for the fighters. And there could be a good case made for either side.

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But we are interested to know your take on this! Let us know in the comments below.

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Written by:

Kanishk Thakur is a UFC writer at EssentiallySports with nearly 5 years of professional writing experience. Kanishk has expertly covered the heated rivalries of the fight game, and delivered meticulous reports of payouts of PPV events and Fight Nights, in addition to covering the personal side of fighters outside the sport. He is also an ardent Joe Rogan fan, who hopes to draw in more fans to the sport as Rogan did for him.

Edited by:

Joyita Das

Dana White Explains Joe Rogan’s X-Factor That Sets Him Apart, Unlike Boxing’s Larry Merchant

Dana White reveals why he despises Larry Merchant

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White reveals why he chose Joe Rogan and ‘DC’