Episode #649
Jonathan Gottschall
Books mentioned
The Professor in the Cage
Mentioned by Joe Rogan (host) · at 00:00:00
Amazon (opens in a new tab; affiliate link) Source: Official episode description (podcast RSS) · Transcript (podscripts.co)
Death in the Afternoon
Mentioned by Joe Rogan (host) · at 02:09:48 · ▶︎ Watch this moment on YouTube (approximate)
Amazon (opens in a new tab; affiliate link) Source: Transcript (podscripts.co)
Timestamps are segment start times from the podscripts.co transcript of the audio release (includes ad reads), so they may differ from the video by a few minutes.
Literary scholar Jonathan Gottschall discusses his midlife move into mixed martial arts and the psychological experience of training and entering the cage. He and Joe Rogan examine combat-sports safety, fighter psychology, weight cutting, neurological risks, and how rituals of competition connect with evolved patterns of aggression, status, and risk-taking.
What they talked about
- English professor's midlife crisis leads to MMA
- Training at a small-town MMA gym
- Comparison of MMA to other combat sports
- Physical toll of sparring and brain damage concerns
- PEDs and drug testing in MMA
- Toxic masculinity and the appeal of fighting
- Jonathan Gottschall's amateur MMA fight experience
- Mechanical bull riding anecdote
Data last updated · Report a mistake · How it works: mentions are pulled from public transcripts and episode descriptions, partly with AI-assisted extraction, so details and timestamps can be off.