Rogan comments on reffing of Mir/Carwin bout

From: Joe Rogan

Member Since: 1/1/01

Posts: 4537

When the fights are on I’m speaking honestly and with emotion. I like Dan, and he’s a very good referee, but there’s going to be times when we all disagree with a judgment call. Disagreements or debates on calls are all valid, and it’s pretty obvious that there’s a bunch of us with different opinions when it comes to these subjects.

Some guys say extra shots when you’re out are fine, it’s a part of the game and it’s better than stopping fights too early. It’s a judgment call, and I can totally find merit in what you’re saying too.

I’m not married to the way I’m looking at, and I can certainly see your point. It’s a title fight, and you’ve got to let it go. Rationally I see that, but in the moment I thought he was taking unnecessary punishment and I expressed that. I could see both points of view though.

I thought Frank was flattened out and not defending himself anymore, and I said what I was thinking, so that’s what I said. It was no disrespect to Dan, it was just what was going through my mind that I was concerned and that I thought the fight should be stopped. It was mostly out of concern for Frank than anything. I like him a lot as a human being, and I didn’t want to see him take any unnecessary punishment. I like Shane a lot as well, he’s an awesome human, and I think he’s a perfect representative of what’s best about the men that compete in this sport, but he’s also a monster when he’s competing. He’s 280 fucking pounds of fury with gigantic stone blocks for fists.

The last thing anyone needs is to take one of those when you’re out.

That said, I agree with giving a fighter every chance, and I appreciate referees that intelligently let fights go on. It’s a risky move. Different results are possible with different referees. I think we can all think to a few fights where it looked like one fighter was really in trouble and some refs might have called it, but the guy pulls it out and pulls off the win coming from behind. It happens, we’ve all seen it. Being a ref is an incredibly difficult job, and I have a tremendous respect for all of them. There’s an incredible amount of pressure on these guys.

I don’t really talk about it too much, because the subject of referees for some reason doesn’t come up too much in interviews that I’ve done, and when it does most of the questions are about negative things. We all have our favorites, but I think we can all agree that referees don’t nearly get the credit they deserve. A really good one can be HUGE. I know when I see a fight that I’m really looking forward to and I see that Herb Dean is going to be the referee I get excited. I know that here’s a guy that’s going to handle everything perfectly. The man just makes the right call under pressure over and over again. I respect the hell out of that. What they have to do is in many cases much more difficult and pressure filled than what I have to do by far.