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Ariel Helwani is the latest MMA personality to throw his support behind UFC commentator and controversial podcaster Joe Rogan.
Rogan has been on the receiving end of backlash over the past several days as Spotify faces mounting pressure to remove his podcast from its library. Helwani, who's had his own issues with Rogan in the past, surprisingly came to the aid of the popular comedian.
On a recent episode of The MMA Hour, Helwani went on a scathing rant to defend the 54-year-old podcaster. He stated:
"And I'll just say, like, all this stuff with Joe Rogan... You know how I feel about Joe Rogan, you know how I feel about him. I feel like he's done me dirty. I think he's being done dirty right now if I'm being honest. It's true. The guy does his show, he has people on. Does he have enough people on the other side? Maybe not enough but I've seen him have Sanjay Gupta. Can everyone just chill out?"
Helwani also called news media "whacked" for allegedly pushing their agenda when it comes to covering certain topics. The MMA reporter said:
"As far as the media is concerned... I can't believe that as sports media, we're required to be unbiased. We're required to tell it as it is. We're required to be down the middle. And then in the world of actual politics and news, and the important stuff, it's just accepted that anyone has an agenda. That's the thing that never made any sense to me. How is that possible? Can you imagine if you tune into a sports network and it's like, 'Oh yeah, we know that these guys are anti-NFL or anti-Yankees.' Like what?"
Check out Ariel Helwani's comments below:
Ariel Helwani's issue with Joe Rogan
Ariel Helwani's issue with Rogan stems from the latter's comments about his ban from covering UFC events. Rogan initially said that Helwani betrayed the promotion's trust by sharing confidential information about Brock Lesnar's return at UFC 200.
But as far as Helwani was concerned, he was merely reporting a piece of insider information – a common practice in other major sporting organizations. Helwani has also been at odds with Rogan's close friend Brendan Schaub over the same issue.
