The strange, sad case of Jonathan “War Machine” Koppenhaver and Christy Mack
came to an end a few weeks ago, though in the light of lots of Federal lawyering
recently, one needs to sometimes first get past bigger news of the day.
Koppenhaver, the ex-MMA star who beat his former girlfriend, porn star Christy
Mack nearly to death and also attacked her friend Corey Thomas at Mack’s Las
Vegas home has been sentenced to 36 years in prison.
Negative attention on who Mack was (and more precisely what she does for a
living) as was raised before Koppenhaver’s arrest, as it was during the trial. Once
again we saw a woman vilified for an overly culturally criticized profession, the
old ‘asking for it’ assumption leveled on Mack because of the salacious nature of
her work.
Prosecutor Jacqueline Bluth made clear her feelings on this point (as much as to
Koppenhaver’s fame) as she pleaded with Judge Cadish presiding over the trial.
“There’s this idea that this case should represent something different because of
who the victim is and who the defendant is. I find that notion disgusting. I think
that no matter who walks in these doors, they should be treated the same by this
court, they should be treated the same by the state…”
Pictures of Mack post-Koppenhaver’s beating were ripe fodder for the blog-
o’sphere, but quite often those horrific pics were set right alongside semi-nudes of
Mack. Again, the ‘see-what- happens-to- bad- little-girls’ implication was clear, but
what is most apparent when seeing Mack pretty much unclothed (in shape though
she is) is how defenseless she would have to be coming up against a raging
muscular beast like her ex.
On his MySpace page, Koppenhaver wrote: “My soul yearns for a real war. The
feeling I get from destroying my enemy is far better than giving the love of even
the most beautiful woman.”
His destruction of his enemies, seeking this beyond love and wanting war has
earned this particular War Machine enough time away that the earliest we could
see Koppenhaver free is when he is 71 if he is granted parole.
-RG