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Jared Cannonier Thanks Joe Rogan For Recognition Amid 'Bunch Of Morons' Discounting Him In MW Title Picture

Originally posted on MMA News | By Kyle Dimond | Last updated 10/24/23

The UFC's middleweight division has been through one hell of a shake-up over the past few months.

Not only was the champion Israel Adesanya beaten by Sean Strickland in a massive upset, but title shots were passed from Dricus Du Plessis to Strickland and now, presumably, to Khamzat Chimaev.

Amongst all of that, Jared Cannonier feels somewhat disrespected and overlooked at the top of the division.

Whilst he was scheduled to replace Paulo Costa in the co-main event of UFC 294 and face Chimaev for the number one contender status, an injury forced him to withdraw from the late-notice opportunity just hours after agreeing to the fight.

During an interview with Submission Radio, "The Killa Gorilla" said that he is never going to pretend to be someone he isn't in order to push himself along the pecking order at 185 pounds.

"When you're dealing with a bunch of morons, all the want to do is see clowns joke around and dance around and do all kinds of craziness but like I said you know, I'm here to fight and that's what I bring to the table. I'm not finna sit here and bark and scream on a microphone and then you know, and that's it and try to bank off of that so that's what the UFC wants, that's what the world wants. Chimaev is doing his thing, I'm not saying he's a clown, he's doing his f*cking thing, the dude's an animal.

"I'm not going to take anything away from any of the competitors but it's a crazy world we live in man and I'm sitting right here ready to break some more records, ready to break some more heads. As soon as this knee gets ready I'm going to be doubt it again so they can only avoid eye contact with me for so long."

Jared Cannonier Gives A Special Mention To Joe Rogan As One Of The Few People Who Is Talking About Him In The Middleweight Title Picture

Since his move to middleweight, Cannonier has only lost two fights, one of which was a number one contender's fight against former champ Robert Whittaker and the other being his title challenge against Adesanya.

Rebounding from his loss to the champion at the time, the former light heavyweight and heavyweight has produced back-to-back wins.

One of those is over the current champion Strickland, and the other was arguably his best performance to date against Marvin Vettori.

Despite that, Cannonier still feels like not enough people are putting respect on his name by throwing him into the title picture in the middleweight division.

During the interview, he gave appreciation to those who are championing him, including UFC commentator Joe Rogan.

"Nobody's running around here saying 'hey Cannonier is in there', I've only heard a few people say Cannonier. Only the real martial artists, the real people will acknowledge me like [Joe] Rogan, I've heard him acknowledge me and there's a few others who will acknowledge me because they're aware of their surroundings and they see what's going on around here, they're not taken by the lights and the glitz and the glamour of this whole machine that's trucking along."

Please provide transcription credit with a link to this article if you use any of these quotes.

This article first appeared on MMA News and was syndicated with permission.

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