Joe Rogan thinks MMA rules favor strikers over grapplers

Joe Rogan would like to see a change in the MMA ruleset.

The UFC commentator and podcaster thinks grapplers are at a disadvantage because time limits in rounds cause them to lose position. MMA fights are either three, five-minute rounds or five, five-minute rounds.

Rogan thinks if you get taken down in a fight, you have to find a way to get back up yourself.

“The rules are set up much more for strikers than for wrestlers,” Rogan told Royce Gracie on his “Joe Rogan Experience” podcast. “I’ve been talking about this lately. Say if you’re a jiu-jitsu guy and you’re fighting in the first round, and rounds are five minutes long, and you take the guy down at four minutes and 30 seconds. You only have 30 seconds to work. Even if you’re going to make it rounds, the fight is the fight.

“I don’t think someone should be able to get up. I don’t think you should stand people up – ever. I think once a guy takes you down, the fight is on the ground. If it’s boring for the audience, tough sh*t. If you’re on the bottom, get up. And if you can’t get up, tough sh*t. And if the round ends and then the new round begins, I think they should start you right back in the same place.”

Fighters also could be forced to stand back up if a referee deems them too inactive on the ground. Rogan says if a fighter ends a round in top control on the ground, they should start the next round in the same position.

“It gives a distinct advantage if you let a person stand up that didn’t stand up,” Rogan added. “If you take me down with four minutes and 30 seconds to go and you’re dominating me, and you’re closing in on me, and you’re about to tap me, but then the round ends, and then we start (the next round), but we start standing up – I didn’t earn that standup. I just got a standup because of the time.

“I feel like the fight should be a fight. If a fight is five rounds, that’s a 25-minute fight, and I think whatever position that you are in at the end of that first round, you should begin in the second round. That’s what I think.”