The Sad, Slow Death of Jon Koppenhaver

Jake RossenDec 01, 2009

Any moral or ethical objections to the industry aside, you have to give it to the pornography industry in one respect: they take in everybody. Give them your tired, your drug-addled, your daddy-issued, your clinically psychotic…there’s a job for everyone. Some more pleasant than others.

So what does it say about War Machine -- birth name Jon Koppenhaver -- that he’s not likely to be welcomed back in hedonism central? Koppenhaver, who sports a not-bad 10-3 record and was infamous for ill-thought-out rants on his Internet profiles, is currently wanted by Metro police in Nevada for allegedly “beating and choking” his girlfriend. This may or may not coincide with an incident over the weekend in which he is said to have assaulted a number of individuals at an adult industry-centric birthday party in California.

Metro considers him “armed and dangerous.” I would consider adopting whatever protocol is used for the escape of a zoo animal, up to and including tranquilizers and raw meat lures.

This is all morbidly fascinating, and I’m not going to pretend the campfire-story appeal isn’t interesting, but Koppenhaver lacks the celebrity for it to amuse people for very long. In all but that respect, he reminds me of Ty Cobb, a viciously-tempered baseball player who once pummeled a handicapped man in the stands of a game and later stabbed a night watchman. Like War Machine, much of his life’s philosophy revolved around besting people he believed were out to get him. Unlike War Machine, he was good enough at his chosen profession to get away with it.

We’ll see how far he can extend his outlaw persona before authority puts him in a box. If Koppenhaver is lucky, it’ll be prison. If he’s not, you can guess.