Joe Rogan On If Dana White Was Upset With Him, Dana White On Latest Drug Test Failure, BJ Penn
- "UFC Tonight" paid homage to BJ Penn recently, putting together a career retrospect video, which you can view above. Penn, a champion in both the welterweight and lightweight divisions, announced his retirement following a loss to Frankie Edgar recently.
- UFC announcer Joe Rogan explained what went down at UFC 175 recently when he was involved in what looked like a heated argument with UFC president Dana White. Following Ronda Rousey's win over Alexis Davis, Rogan proposed a quick return to action in August at UFC 176.
"Just for the record Dana wasn't pissed at me at all. I thought it was actually Dana's idea when the producers interrupted me to get me to ask that question when I was trying to wrap up the interview," Rogan posted on the MMA forum, The Underground. "It's incredibly rare that the guys in the truck ever ask me to ask a specific question. He was upset that someone overstepped their bounds and decided it would be a good idea to ask Ronda to fight again in a month. Decisions like that always come from Dana and Lorenzo (Fertitta), so when a producer thought it would be a good idea to ask Ronda that before consulting them he was really pissed off."
That card, which has since been canceled, lost the planned main event when Jose Aldo went down with an injury. No opponent was mentioned for Rousey's possible defense of her female bantamweight title. It has since been reported that she suffered a broken thumb and will require a knee scope, so Rousey couldn't have fought anyway.
- UFC president Dana White is furious over the recent year-long suspension given to Ali Bagautinov for using a banned substance. Bagautinov competed for the UFC flyweight title in June, falling to Demetrious Johnson.
"I'm beyong disappointed," said White, in an interview with Yahoo! Sports. "We're not paying lip service to this. We're trying to clean this up. It's hurting everyone in the sport and we're all over it."
Bagautinov joins a long list of fighters who have been given suspensions for the use of performance-enhancing drugs, including the recently-retired Chael Sonnen. He will need to supply the UFC with a clean drug test prior to returning to action in 2015.