Since Chael Sonnen’s retirement from MMA, it seemed like the UFC would be at a loss with some of its bravado in the hype game. Fans either loved or hated the words and actions of Sonnen, and it made for great publicity to build fights.

Joe Rogan spoke with multiple-time kickboxing world champion John Wayne Parr on his JRE podcast on how the excitement never skipped a beat with the new undisputed king of smack talk from Ireland.

“Conor [McGregor] is the best shit talker ever,” Rogan said in his podcast. “I think that’s just him, I think he’s just free and just thinks that way. He’s just an amazing shit talker, he’s so good at it.”

Rogan added that McGregor has two sides, and that he UFC interim featherweight champion can turn on the hype machine with the flip of a switch.

“And he wasn’t like that earlier in his career, he became like that really when he got to the UFC,” Rogan said of McGregor. “I mean he head a hair of that before, he had a little bit of that before, where was confident and he would talk well. I’ve been following Conor for years, I tweeted him a long time ago, like several years ago, back when he was fighting in England. I believe it was — I think it was England, I’m not sure — fighting in some overseas organization, and I watched it on Youtube, and I was like, ‘This guy is fucking talented.’ ”

Do you think Conor McGregor is a brilliant and cognitive marketing machine? Or do you think the Irishman simply speaks his mind? Share your opinion on the polarizing interim featherweight champ in the comments!