During Bellator 79, the promotion ran a controversial and highly talked about advertisement to promote the return of War Machine, formerly Jon Koppemhaver.
The commercial showed video footage of the convicted felon from prison, saying “I am fueled by hate.”
War Machine’s return date to the promotion will be decided by the fans, as part of a new online initiative to have fans decide which fights they want to see. Rebney believes the commercial aired during Bellator 79 may have been misleading.
During a Bellator 79 post-fight scrum, Bjorn Rebney tried to make sense of the situation.
“I think we perhaps should have done a better job explaining“, said Rebney. “The series that’s going to happen on the web is kind of a 24/7 behind the scenes. Saunders story is all about being down at ATT and the love of his dog and his family relationship and how he’s trying to come back and have another tournament success. Lima’s story is different. Daley’s is about what he does in the U.K.”
He went on to say that “Jon’s story is that ‘I’ve been in prison’ and so that’s subsequently part of the story.
The concerns of War Machine’s return to the promotion stem farther than his legal background, however. Rebney says War Machine has lost “a lot of weight” and spent much of his prison sentence in solitary confinement.
“He was training the day after he got released and throwing up all over the gym because he hadn’t had much training”, said Rebney. “He’s back and he’s got literally 11 weeks to get ready before the fight.”
Rebney believes War Machine deserves the opportunity based on his good behavior between incarcerations, the first of which was a nine month sentence for assault, and the second was due to charges which took prior to the nine month sentence.
“Jon is Jon. He’s going to say dumb things on a consistent basis, but he didn’t break any laws. He didn’t punch anybody on the street. He was as good as Jon has ever been over an extended period, but the judge had put him back in jail for something prior to his incarceration.”
“I think it would be disingenuous on my part to look at Jon and say ‘well there’s a lot of controversy around you now, so we’re not going to take you back’”, said Rebney.
War Machine is not the first controversial signing in the promotions history, as Bellator has a past of signing fighters with less than admirable track records. Ryan Ford and Brett Rogers, as well as Muhammad Lawal and Paul Daley to a lesser extent, have pasts that many promoters would shy away from.
(photo courtesy of Bellator)
