Aired live – May 10, 2014
Powerful Joe Rogan, an official Ultimate Fighting Championship commentator, is usually ringside calling every bout. And he is far-and-away the best at what he does.
But last Saturday he was relaxing in his Californian podcast studios with friends while his co-workers did the live television broadcast from Ohio.
At his leisure, Joe invited friends Aubrey Marcus of Onnit fitness, fellow stand-up comedian Bryan Callen, and professional mixed martial artist Brendan Schaub to join him in watching the fights on TV while recording their reactions for posterity.
I say “Posterity”, but, in fact, the number of people who download Joe’s podcasts in one month exceeds the number of people who signed up for Obamacare during the entire registration period!
And all this while quaffing red wine and loudly chowing down on deli pickles from Chicago. Joe goes on to explain that he has blocked Twitter followers for complaining about his pickle munching, or “Go fuck your mother.” as he likes to say.
It was a tremendous night of fights with Matt “the Immortal” Brown (once again) proving why he’s my favourite fighter.
Still, after multiple listenings, I’m not convinced that video really enhanced the experience of listening to Joe and his friends “Oooh and aaaah!” over the proceedings. For obvious copyright reasons, he was unable to show any of the actual fight footage being aired on TV. Listening to it over the headphones the next day I had to laugh out loud at some of the jokes they were tossing around. Pretty crass stuff, but all in good fun. They really know how to take the piss out of each other (with love).
At home during the live event, I was drifting between my television and PC so I could listen to the pod-banter during the all-too frequent commercial breaks. One day this will be a merged experience where PC and PVR are synchronized! I can’t wait!
Overall, I thought it was a fun and insightful bonus to what was already a stellar night of free mixed martial arts action.
Joe may have been speaking with his tongue firmly planted in his cheek when he said he was quitting his job with the UFC to do independent podcast commentary, but I do hope that he revisits this scenario in the future.
For my part, I’m totally down with the notion that casual and unscripted podcasts have their own merit. It could be as easy as flipping on a camera while I’m doing my live radio program.
Now, who wants to watch D~Jedi Christine use a lint-brush on this dusty ol’ Budgie LP?
Youtube link: http://youtu.be/k8XGRoECMOg
nocturntable 
I normally don’t make commenthts, especially written down on this hate ether we call the internet, but I have to say two things: 1. Nice, well written essay. You demonstrated your thesis. 2. Way to help out the commentator, who I”m sure is nice, who posted as the only reaction on a topic not in any way connected with your subject.
I said two, but, hey, I’m making this up: 3. I wish you all more than well.
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I have a technical question, how do you get the YouTube video to embed directly into your blog post?
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Try exploring the add media buttons in WordPress! They allow you to search and link to Youtube videos directly — You can also get the html embed code from the share section under any Youtube video and then paste it into your blog by using the Text tab (as opposed to the Visual tab). Hope this helps, Tara!
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