Morning Report: Joe Rogan: Jake Paul vs. Anderson Silva was ‘legit as f***,’ rigged fight claims are crazy

Joe Rogan isn’t buying into the fight-fixing talk surrounding Jake Paul’s win against Anderson Silva.

Claims of foul play are nothing new for Paul’s boxing matches and that theme continued after his most recent sixth victory. Still undefeated, “The Problem Child” managed to earn arguably his biggest career win this past weekend over Silva via unanimous decision.

Having displayed his power in the majority of his bouts to this point with knockouts, Paul was unable to put away “The Spider” but did some quality damage in the process. Paul managed to score a late knockdown in the match, prompting social media to go crazy and shout that the fight was rigged. From longtime UFC color commentator Rogan’s seat, he couldn’t disagree more.

“Some people are trying to say that fight was fixed because of the knockdown,” Rogan said on his Joe Rogan Experience podcast. “I just want to explain to people this is what happened … Anderson moved forward to Jake Paul and Jake Paul hit him with a sort of a stepping jab and caught him right on the chin. And when he caught him on the chin, Anderson Silva was falling backwards and then he leans away from the right hand and he goes down. He was down from the punch, but it looks like the right hand doesn’t connect, but the left hand is what f***** him up.

“That dude hits f****** hard and for anybody to say he doesn’t hit hard because he’s a YouTube Star — if this guy was not a f****** YouTube star and he was some dude who went out there and flatlined Tyron Woodley with one punch and just knocked down Anderson Silva in the f****** eighth round … Come on, son. That is legit as f***. Anybody that says that’s not legitimate is crazy. He cracked him.”

As one of the greatest MMA fighters the sport has ever known, Silva suffered 11 total losses by the time he hung up the gloves in late 2020. Of those losses, only two were knockouts from head strikes landed. Now 47, Silva proved he remains as durable as he was finishing his run in the UFC, but it wasn’t enough to get past the improving Paul.

Paul’s sights are fixed on another UFC veteran, Nate Diaz, for his next time out, but he’s also made some big callouts towards names like top pound-for-pound boxing champion Saul “Canelo” Alvarez. Rogan feels there’s definitely something to this career that Paul has been putting together, but there’s no need to get carried away to such degrees.

“Dude, he can fight,” Rogan said. “Is he the best in the world? No. But is he getting better with every fight? Yes. Is he a 25-year-old guy who’s a legit athlete? Yes. If this is what he wants to do, this guy is making a f****** insane amount of money and he f****** loves it. He’s beating people that everybody says he shouldn’t be the f****** ring with.”

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Between the Links.

UFC Vegas 64 preview.

UFC 281 trailer.

Chandler’s legacy.

Free fight.

Izzy’s fight camp ep. 3.

Volk’s first UFC loss.

Heck of a Morning. MMA Fighting’s Mike Heck discusses what’s next for Israel Adesanya if he defeats Alex Pereira at UFC 281.

Same same, but different.

Ouch.

Ouch again.

Walkout spoiler.

Film watching.

Footwork.

Pantera takes Bahrain.

Hangout.

King Leon.

Tafon Nchukwi (6-3) vs. Vitor Petrino (7-0); UFC Vegas 66, Dec. 17

Omar Morales (11-3) vs. Mateusz Rębecki (16-1); UFC Vegas 67, Jan. 14

Tatsuro Taira (12-0) vs. Jesús Aguilar (8-1); UFC Seoul, Feb. 4

Rogan vs. Paul. Three million PPV buys easily. Let’s go.

Have a great and safe weekend, gang. Thanks for reading and see you next week!

If you find something you’d like to see in the Morning Report, hit up @DrakeRiggs_ on Twitter and let him know about it. Also follow MMAFighting on Instagram and like us on Facebook.