Faceoff – Who is the one sport commentator/announcer who you just can’t stand? Mike Goldberg

If you’ve ever watched an Ultimate Fighting Championship event, then you have heard the ridiculous nature of Mike Goldberg’s play-by-play commentary.

Now, I understand the difficulty in calling a fight live while also plugging sponsors. But some of Goldberg’s comments make you wonder exactly what exactly he’s thinking, especially with comments  such as, “He wants to get in close to use that reach advantage.”

Be sure to let that one sink in for a second. Even if the only thing you know about fighting is that two fools voluntarily get punched in the head, it’s still obvious that this statement is colossally absurd.

To make life better, we are blessed by Goldberg’s broadcast partner, conspiracy theorist, “Fear Factor” host, and MMA expert, Joe Rogan. Off camera, the things that come out of Rogan’s mouth on topics ranging from the moon landing to enlightenment (the man has a hallucination chamber in his basement) would make anyone do a double take. However, during UFC broadcasts, Rogan has the distinct pleasure of calling Goldberg out on his ludicrous comments.

Somehow, while calling a fight, Goldberg confused Portuguese with Japanese. I’m no linguist, but it is a fair assessment to say that Japanese and Portuguese are two very different languages spoken by two very different groups of people. While the majority of the viewers were probably wondering where the Portugese-speaking people that Goldberg spoke of were, Joe Rogan stepped up to the plate, informing Goldberg, “Uh, that’s Japanese, brother.” When Goldberg remarked that he should have known that, Rogan aptly informed the audience that Goldberg is married to a Japanese woman.

Of course, Goldberg’s lack of ability to identify any type of submission is really just icing on the cake. For those of you not in the know, the most basic submission in MMA is the rear naked choke, when one fighter wraps their arm around the neck of another fighter from behind. Despite being ringside at dozens of UFC events and seeing this technique hundreds of times, Goldberg still called this move a “kind of strange choke I’ve never seen before.”

Ultimately, I don’t hate Goldberg. He generally does a passable job of calling fights. Anyone who has watched any B-league MMA promotion knows most commentators are somewhere between the level of “pitiful” and “learned English yesterday.”

That doesn’t mean that when Goldberg says something like “He’s unrelentless,” I won’t roll my eyes and attempt to yell at Goldberg through the TV to pick up a copy of “Mixed Martial Arts for People Who Fail to Recognize Even the Most Obvious of Things.”