Joe Rogan believes that there’s an issue with the UFC which has led to members of the roster being frustrated.
Rogan is set to return to the commentary booth later today for one of the biggest events of the year, UFC 320 in Las Vegas.
The long-time color commentator has watched the promotion evolve significantly since he went from being a fan to a part of the furniture.
As a result, the podcaster and stand-up comedian has never been afraid to voice his opinions about how the UFC could improve.
While Rogan has regularly pushed for more weight classes to be introduced, he recently stated that there’s another issue that the promotion has to deal with in present day.
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Joe Rogan believes that fighters get frustrated with not being active enough because the UFC roster is too big
During a recent episode of his JRE MMA Show (#170), Joe Rogan was joined by UFC star Michael ‘Venom’ Page during a big fight week.
‘MVP’ has recently been competing at middleweight after spending the majority of his career as a welterweight.
Page has stated that this decision was due to the politics at 170 pounds not allowing him to fight as often as he would like, which he repeated during the podcast.
Rogan went on to say that, while politics between fighters is certainly a key aspect that stops people from regularly competing, he believes that there’s another cause that leads to frustrations.
“I think there’s just too many athletes,” Rogan admitted.
Rogan believes that the level of talent that is out there right now who deserve to compete inside the Octagon has led to a huge roster, with him being stunned after finding out the number of signed fighters.
“674. Wow. 674 fighters under contract and they don’t have fights every week. They have fights almost every week but not every week. I mean just think about that. So you have 52 weeks, you have all these fighters. Fighters want to fight multiple times a year.”
Rogan agreed with Page regarding his frustrations, adding that he wouldn’t want to be a matchmaker because “it’s the hardest job”.
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A lot of fans have criticized Dana White’s Contender Series for overloading the UFC roster
Whenever Dana White gives fans a look at the UFC’s ‘war room’ where they put together cards, you’ll see constant Dana White’s Contender Series tags across every event.
With two episodes still left to go, this year’s season of Dana White’s Contender Series has seen 35 new fighters earn UFC contracts following this week’s episode.
This means that only seven fighters will need to be signed across the next two episodes to match the previous season’s total of 42.
From 2017 to 2023, this number of fighters signed increased each year, as seen below, with many fans arguing that this has diluted the quality of the roster due to it being filled with athletes who might not be the best of the best.
| Dana White’s Contender Series season | Dates | Number of episodes | Number of contracts awarded |
| 9 | August 12 to October 14 – 2025 | 10 | 35 (so far) |
| 8 | August 13 to October 15 – 2024 | 10 | 42 |
| 7 | August 8 to October 10 – 2023 | 10 | 46 |
| 6 | July 26 to September 27 – 2022 | 10 | 43 |
| 5 | August 31 to November 2 – 2021 | 10 | 39 |
| 4 | August 4 to November 17 – 2020 | 10 | 37 |
| 3 | June 18 to August 27 – 2019 | 10 | 30 |
| 2 | June 12 to August 7 – 2018 | 8 | 23 |
| 1 | July 11 to August 29 – 2017 | 8 | 16 |
As Rogan stated, while the UFC does cut a lot of fighters, especially around the start of a new Dana White’s Contender Series Season, this also creates an issue where there is much more demand for spots on cards.