Israel Adesanya Defends Joe Rogan Again

UFC middleweight champion Israel Adesanya is defending comedian, UFC commentator, and podcaster Joe Rogan again.  He did so prior to UFC 271 when, as he put it, he saved Dana White's ass from being setup by the reporter.

Adesanya said then Rogan wasn't a racist and called him, "one of the nicest, coolest, humble motherfuckers I've had the pleasure of working with."  Seems like a pretty strong endorsement of Rogan.

This time around the UFC champ defended Rogan on the "Flagrant 2" podcast, calling the attempts to go after him "a systematic way of trying to take power away from someone."

From Yahoo Sports:

“I saved Dana’s ass by the way. (The reporter) was trying to set Dana up,” Adesanya said. “I didn’t mean to. I was just like, ‘This motherf*cker.’ Because first off, I know Rogan. His (response to Neil Young) … when he made that video, I was kind of like, man, he handled that really nicely, told his Neil Young story, and he wasn’t even mad. That’s how you handle that. When (the N-word) video came out, yeah, he was wrong. He shouldn’t have said that. And he said ‘I’m sorry.’ That was the most sincere (apology), not scripted-Hollywood-my-manager-wrote-this-down-for-me-to-apologize. What more do you want? It’s just this f*cking culture of just like, ‘No, we’re gonna hold you to your past.’ That’s how many years ago.”

In the wake of the controversy, Rogan didn’t commentate at UFC 271 in Houston where Adesanya successfully defended his title with a unanimous decision win over Robert Whittaker.

Adesanya, a Black man from Nigeria who now lives in New Zealand, said he took umbrage specifically with the N-word controversy. To him, it’s an example of the lengths to which “the powers that be” will go to try and silence Rogan, whose massive audience constantly praises him for questioning mainstream media.

“I love that dude, man,” Adesanya said. “Rogan’s a guy that, for me, look, all right, we know what’s going on. That’s why I said f*ck the noise. Don’t focus on what they want you to focus on; focus on why they’re doing what they’re doing. Do you know how much manpower it takes for someone to go through every single episode of ‘The JRE’? They probably had a whole team on that sh*t and just finding where he was saying the word, find where he was using the N-word. They would’ve had like 10 people on that sh*t and hours of f*cking footage. And it’s like, why now? I’m not saying think like me. Just use your brain.”

He continued, “We know what they do. He’s got the biggest platform right now on earth, and he’s not able to be controlled. So the people, the powers that be … what’s next? It’s gonna be something about a transgender this, or they’ll try and find that. And when that doesn’t work, then they’re gonna go and find something (else) from his past.”

I don't know, I think I might have to check with Neil Young first.  You know to make sure it's okay with him if other people do and say whatever the fuck they want.