UFC champion Israel Adesanya riled up the crowd at a UFC 271 press conference Thursday ahead of his fight against Robert Whittaker in which he hopes to defend his middleweight championship.
Adesanya expressed support for UFC commentator Joe Rogan, who won’t be calling the fight due to a “scheduling conflict.” Rogan has been under fire after a compilation video surfaced of him using the N-word amid allegations he spread misinformation on his Spotify-hosted podcast.
The champ offered his remarks after UFC president Dana White was asked about Rogan.
“First off, let me take this one. hold up. I’m Black. I can take this one,” Adesanya said, via MMA Junkie† “Look, there’s a lot of c—s in this game. There are a lot of snakes in this game. I’ve been in this fight game since 2008. Joe Rogan is one of the nicest, coolest, humble motherf—–s I’ve had the pleasure of working with. Understand that.
“F—the noise. You know what they’re trying to do. You can’t control the man. He’s got the biggest platform in the world right now. That’s my n—- Joe Rogan. F—the noise. …Just keep doing you, Joe. Have some mushrooms. keep doing you.”
Adesanya also commented on the Rogan controversy in an Instagram post.
“We are living in very strange times,” Adesanya wrote, adding several sheep emoji to the end of his post. “When a voice speaks out against the mainstream narrative, the establishment have a systematic way of shutting said voice down. I’m not asking you to think like me, I encourage you to turn off your tv and think for yourself. Don’t let them pull the wool over your eyes,”
Rogan was back on the stand-up stage Tuesday night in Austin, Texas, and made light of the controversy, according to The Hollywood Reporter†
“I used to say it if [I was talking about] a Richard Pryor bit or something, I would say it in context,” Rogan said. “Somebody made a compilation of every time I said that word over 14 years, and they put it on YouTube, and it turned out that was racist as f—. Even to me! I’m me, and I’m watching it saying, ‘Stop saying it!’ I put my cursor over the video, and I’m like, ‘Four more minutes?’”
“I haven’t used that word in years,” Rogan added. “But it’s kind of weird people will get really mad if you use that word and tweet about it on a phone that’s made by slaves.”
Fox News’ Tyler McCarthy contributed to this report.