Deric Poston — Standup comedian and Austin comedy-scene regular who tours with Andrew Schulz and is close friends with the Kill Tony / Mothership crowd. This episode coincides with his first comedy special release on the Don't Tell Comedy YouTube channel.
The gist
Joe Rogan and Deric Poston spend most of the conversation on the craft and culture of standup comedy, praising peers like Andrew Schulz, Dave Attell, Colin Quinn, Eddie Murphy and Bill Burr. Rogan recounts his own years as an amateur taekwondo and kickboxing fighter, the brain-damage risks of combat sports, and the difficulty elite fighters face becoming 'regular people.' They break down legendary MMA knockouts, especially Alex Pereira and Israel Adesanya, and George Foreman's punching power. The back half turns political and philosophical: due process and deportations, UK vs. Russia social-media arrests, addiction, AI and automation, universal basic income, the rhino-horn trade, and Deric's recent obsessions with Hamilton and the Harry Potter books.
Big reveals
- Deric relays Theo Von's claim that he went from $2,000 a weekend to ~$40k a week after growing out his mullet.
- Rogan recounts spending ages 15-21 traveling the country fighting people, saying he was socially crippled by it.
- Rogan describes a tournament knockout where he feared the opponent was dead, and his instructor told him 'sometimes they die.'
- Deric tells a wild story about a man grabbing him at a London sex club called The Box, nearly triggering a fight.
- They relive being in the green room when Adesanya KO'd Pereira and ruined another comic's set with their reaction.
- Discussion that Biden reportedly wasn't really running the country and that ~9,000 pardons were auto-penned.
- Deric declares the Harry Potter books the greatest art ever and Hamilton number two, ahead of the Bible.
- Deric demos Tesla Full Self-Driving in his car, predicting his kids won't need to learn to drive.
Things worth remembering
- Deric claims the Super Bowl halftime show as we know it exists because In Living Color stole so many viewers during a 1993 counter-broadcast.
- Rogan traces arena standup history: Andrew Dice Clay (~1987), then Dane Cook in the 2000s.
- A power-punch machine reportedly measured Alex Pereira at 191 vs. Francis Ngannou's ~130.
- BJ Penn won the Brazilian jiu-jitsu Mundials world championship as a black belt only three years into training.
- Both call There Will Be Blood and Uncut Gems films so immersive they were physically uncomfortable to watch.
- In 2023 the UK made ~12,183 arrests (about 33/day) over electronic/social-media communications, vs. far fewer in Russia.
- Rhino horn's only real market is wealthy buyers who get off on drinking tea from an endangered species, believing it boosts virility.
- A famous grizzly known as 'the boss' has been hit by a train twice and survives, and reportedly eats other bears.
- They cite the claim that plants/grass make noise when being eaten.