Excellent interview Mike! You’re the best in the business and it isn’t even close. Another extremely difficult interview to make happen and you pulled it off again.
Loved learning about his origins and experiences at Lion’s Den. It’s interesting how he climbed the ranks so quickly at the gym. He seemed to have been in Ken’s good graces from the beginning. I know this was during the turbulent later years of the den. Maybe it was Jon’s willingness to help with providing the extracurricular drugs, etc. that helped him rise so quickly with Ken? According to Tony Galindo, Jon’s tryout was pretty half-ass compared to other fighters. I had no idea he was right there with Ken at UFC 40. I remember some years back Ken saying that Koppenhaver ran off with his daughter at some point and left her across the border? I’m assuming he dated Ken’s daughter at one time. Not sure if any of you have heard this or have any other details. Not sure if this was during or after his time at Lion’s Den.
He and Galindo were/are clearly not fans of each other. I’m sure Tony definitely big brother’d Jon early on. Jon can say what he wants about Tony’s career, but Galindo had some serious knockout power and those early KOTC shows were awesome and they always had great talent.
I also found it interesting learning about his time at Cobra Kai. I think people forget just how good that gym was at one time. Unbelievable talent there in the early/mid 2000’s. Marc Laimon was a top notch coach and would be another great guest for you guys to get. War Machine definitely made his rounds to some of the best gyms and coaches in the sport.
Another question I have is did the Tapout crew (Mask, Punkass, Scrape) train? If so where? I’ve never really heard if those guys trained in the sport or they were just fans who helped build the branding of the sport and support the fighters.
I’m really enjoying Joey’s intros for these heavier episodes. Very well done!
That 20% is just ignorant. Probably haven’t even listened to your intros on the more complex guests. If they had, they would know this is for the preservation of the sports history. The good, the bad, & the ugly. Not to honor the horrendous crimes of someone like War Machine. Reminds me of when Perretti was on and he detailed the time the politicians were trying to get his events shut down in the 90’s claiming he did not even have refs and it was obvious he had never even watched the show. The guy told him “I don’t have to watch pornography to know what it is.” People just want to judge something they don’t understand without any education on the matter.
This was one of my favorite interviews so far and I’m so impressed you guys were able to put this together.
While War Machine has done terrible things, I am happy he found God and seems like a changed man. He is at peace and his story behind bars is inspirational. People can stop shaming him, since even he admits he’s a POS and has owned up to all of his mistakes.
Fuck the people crying about having him on there. No true MMA fan is going to act like that. I want to hear all these stories, even if the person has done bad things.
War Machine is a huge part of MMA history and congrats on landing such a rare interview (probably the only one he has done since being locked up). This episode was a great listen and I look forward to the next episode.
On a side note, the Phil Baroni stuff in the interview was very sad to hear.
Dude @MMAHistoryPodcast never fails to impress me…. Between this and the Rafael Torre interview, him and the team have been absolutely crushing it lately. Not to mention Ron Waterman too a few weeks ago
I fucking loved that dreamcast game!! I played that game for probably 1000 hours with the juvenile delinquents on my caseload in the early 2000s!! Good Memories!!
