In the immediate aftermath of Daniel Cormier’s knockout loss to Jon Jones at UFC 214 on Saturday night, color commentator Joe Rogan made an error of judgement when he decided to interview the still dazed former champion.
“My apologies to Daniel Cormier and to all of you upset by my interviewing him after the fight,” Rogan wrote on Twitter. “In all honestly I was kind of in shock. I don’t think I realized what I was doing until I actually had a mic in front of him.
“I’ve said I don’t want to interview KO’ed fighters. And then I wound up doing it to someone I care a great deal about. D.C. Is a great man and the whole thing was surreal.
“Again, no one asked me to do it. It was 100% my fuck up. Like I said, I was kind of in shock.”
Cormier had been engaged in a highly competitive fight up until the moment early in the third round when a head kick badly rocked the 38-year-old, leading soon after to a vicious ground and pound beatdown that would lead to the KO stoppage, and Jones winning back the light-heavyweight title.
It would later emerge that Cormier had suffered a concussion, and looking at his demeanor in the Octagon after the finish that seemed clear as when he did get to his feet after a few minutes he still looked unsteady, confused and agitated, apparently unaware that he’d been knocked out.
With that in mind, Dana White revealed afterwards that the producers had decided against having ‘DC’ do a post-fight interview, but in the spur of the moment Rogan took it upon himself to give the dethroned champion a chance to speak.
However, Rogan appeared to quickly realize that had been a bad idea and cut the interview hort with the extremely emotional and disorientated Cormier.
Rogan will no doubt be kicking himself now that the dust has settled on the situation as he’d previously stated that he would refuse to interview fighters iin the cage if they’d been knocked out after a similarly controversial conversation last year with a confused Alistair Overeem just minutes after he’d been KO’d by Stipe Miocic.
