Where this was said
Kickboxing's American Problem: The Untapped Market
At 23:15 · chapter starts 21:00
The conversation widens into the structural problem of kickboxing's American invisibility [1] — Joe Rogan "MMA fans boo when fights go to the ground. They love stand-up. Kickboxing is pure stand-up. Yet it barely exists in America while boxing an…" 20:52 . Rogan is mystified: MMA fans boo when fights go to the ground and love stand-up, yet kickboxing barely registers. He watched Glory's Last Man Standing tournament in Los Angeles and loved it. ONE FC is doing real work but remains Asia-focused. He argues the missing ingredient is not talent — it's the UFC's storytelling machine: the Embedded series, the countdown shows, the human interest content. Rico agrees completely, citing Glory's failure to build characters around its fighters as a fundamental gap. Both point to Alex Pereira as proof: Rogan already knew Pereira was something special from Glory, while MMA-only fans were shocked when he arrived in the UFC.
