Joe Rogan thinks the UFC made an enormous mistake by moving into the Energy Slap enterprise as a substitute of kickboxing.
Dana White and Co. formally launched Energy Slap in 2022, beginning with a sequence of occasions inside The APEX in Las Vegas. Since then, the slap-fighting promotion has made appearances in each Abu Dhabi and Saudi Arabia.
In fact, not everyone seems to be a fan of the slap preventing, together with former UFC referee ‘Massive’ John McCarthy, who dubbed the “sport” as nothing greater than “sanctioned mind trauma.” Joe Rogan tends to agree with that evaluation, although he was somewhat extra cautious together with his phrases, merely stating that Energy Slap was not his cup of tea.
Just lately, Rogan shared his frustration over the UFC’s choice to launch Energy Slap as a substitute of kickstarting its personal kickboxing promotion.
“I feel the UFC f*cked up after they went with slap preventing,” Rogan mentioned on a current Combat Companion podcast. “I’ve been telling them eternally, ‘You guys ought to get into kickboxing.’ In the event you solely like standup fights, it’s not just like the previous days of kickboxing the place they had been boring. The knockouts are f*cking loopy.
“Kickboxing with MMA gloves in a cage can be large. Simply have a striking-only section of the UFC. Glory’s obtained some elite fighters. I watch Glory on a regular basis. It’s f*cking thrilling, however no person’s watching it. No person is aware of who these individuals are.”
Dana White set to launch boxing promotion in 2025
Whereas the UFC could haven’t any plans to launch a kickboxing promotion, Dana White is leaping headfirst into the world of boxing.
In March, Dana White introduced that he was teaming with Turki Alalshikh, Chairman of the Basic Leisure Authority in Saudi Arabia, to launch a brand-new boxing group. The yet-to-be-named promotion will function “a extremely structured system to develop new expertise from around the globe,” in addition to entry for all boxers to the UFC Efficiency Institutes in Las Vegas, Mexico Metropolis, and Shanghai, and “TKO’s manufacturing, media, and promotional experience.”
