Saturday’s Bellator fight between Kevin “Kimbo Slice” Ferguson and Dhafir “Dada 5000" Harris went from farcical to concerning after reports came out that Harris’s heart had stopped after the bout.
UFC commentator Joe Rogan took the opportunity to mock the rival promotion, calling the match “the worst fight I’ve ever seen” as he was watching it, and following up with harsher comments on his Feb. 21 podcast. MMA Fighting has a partial transcript:
“Yea, his heart stopped,” said Rogan. “It was filled with cheeseburgers and fried chicken and orange soda. He didn’t train. There was no way he trained. I mean, he might have trained for a couple of days. You should have lost 40 pounds before. It’s not like you didn’t know you were going to do this. How about Kimbo? What the [fuck] was going on with him? That wasn’t even amateur hour. Really? If it was an amateur fight you’d be champing at the bit to fight those guys. ‘I hope they’re in my bracket.’
“All you have to do is dance around for a few minutes and they’re toast. How about that one exchange where Dada just lay down and Kimbo just rolled over on top of him. There was no takedown. I wonder if they were talking to each other. ‘You want to take this to the ground, homie?’”
At 3:10:13 of the podcast, Rogan repeats the comment about Harris’s body being filled with fried chicken. In the background, someone mentions purple drink.
In a statement released through BYB Extreme, Dada 5000's camp called Rogan’s comments “overtly racist”:
The Harris Family is appalled at the overtly racist and offensive comments directed at Dada 5000 by Joe Rogan who said in an interview that Dada’s heart was filled with “cheeseburgers, fried chicken, and orange soda”, mocking the family’s statement issued the previous day.
We don’t recall Mr. Rogan ever challenging anyone with this amount of vitriol and ignorant racial overtones, all directed to a man who is still hospitalized.
For the record, Dada lost 40lbs over course of 3 1/2 months while in training camp where he had a boxing coach an MMA coach, and a nutritionist hired by his team. As fight week approached Dada was only 2-3 pounds over fight weight. He took this fight very seriously as evidenced by his gutsy performance. Mocking Dada 5000 with hurtful and racist comments is despicable and divisive and has no place in the sport of mixed martial arts or in our society.
Former UFC fighter Angela Hill used a clip from one of Rogan’s old stand-up routines to explain her thoughts on his comments:
Photo: AP
Contact the author at samer@deadspin.com.