Joe Rogan showed true colors with ‘harsh’ advice | Sports News

Joe Rogan did not mince words when ruthlessly picking apart Brendan Schaub’s UFC career during a fiery podcast in 2014. Over a decade since the emotionally charged sitdown, however, the former heavyweight is thankful that his close friend made his point in the “harshest way.”

Fresh off a first round defeat to Travis Browne at UFC 181, Schaub agreed to discuss the fight on an episode of ‘The Fighter and the Kid’ with Bryan Callen. While driving to the studio, he learned that Rogan would additionally be sitting in on the conversation – one that would completely alter the trajectory of his career.

Throughout the nearly two-hour long podcast, Rogan questioned if Schaub was still fully committed to fighting. Given the inherent health risks that come with competing in the UFC, the commentator encouraged his friend to retire from MMA and pursue other interests.

“The reality of your skill set, where you’re at now, I don’t see you beating the elite guys,” Rogan told Schaub at the time. “I don’t see you beating Cain Velasquez. I don’t see you beating Junior dos Santos. I don’t see you beating Fabricio Werdum.

“It’s not that you don’t try hard, that you’re not dedicated, that you’re not disciplined, that you’re not intelligent. There’s shit that other people can do that you can’t do.”

Looking back on Rogan’s “intervention,” Schaub insisted that it was the best advice he could’ve ever received – even if it was a tough pill to swallow at the time. “Even before that fight, I talked to Joe and Brian about how I was kind of one foot in, one foot out, because I had a lot of other opportunities,” Schaub exclusively told Express Sport U.S.

“It was a good thing. A lot of fighters have to keep fighting and it’s not good, and they have nothing to fall back on. But I was at a point where I was making more money doing my podcasting than I was fighting. So Joe knew that, Bryan Callen knew that.

“I was really upset at the time. And people were like, ‘Man, you should have spoken up.’ And I couldn’t because I would have said things that I can’t take back,” he continued. “Also I was in a state – especially then as a fighter – where I wanted to fight. Whether it was Brian and Joe, like my two best friends, like I would have fought them if they kept going.”

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Though Schaub initially tried to prove Rogan wrong by revitalizing his UFC career in a different weight class, the Ultimate Fighter finalist never fought again following the pair’s chat. “At the time I knew just to take it, listen, and then deal with it after. And then the fighter in me was like, ‘Oh, —- both of them, I’m going to cut to 205. So I started cutting to 205, I got down to 225, killing myself,” added Schaub, who’s partnered with the wellness brand ATHLETC.

“I just woke up one in the middle of the night and thought, what the —- am I doing, dude? What are you doing? And then I was like, ‘I’m done. I’m done, man.’

“My family was really mad at Joe too at the time, but in hindsight he was dead on. His delivery was harsh, but his whole thing was like, ‘You can do other things, man. You’re competing against guys and this is all they care about, it’s all they have. You can make more money and have a career doing all this other stuff, get going.”