Real Sports with Bryant Gumbel recently aired an investigation into domestic violence in the MMA fighting community. In a special clip posted on HBO’s YouTube page, Christy Mack responds to a letter from her assailant, MMA fighter War Machine (née Jonathan Koppenhaver), in which he laments the “media circus” that has caused him to face 32 “bullshit charges,” rather than one simple domestic violence battery charge. He also accuses Mack of taking advantage of him nearly beating her to death almost a year ago to make money.
In the short clip posted to HBO’s YouTube page on Wednesday, Mack says:
“I don’t understand how I could be making so much money if I can’t work. I am unable to make public appearances until recently...
As for him being made out to be a villain because he has tattoos and he’s a fighter, I have tattoos and I was a porn star. Like, what makes him more a villain than me? The point is, he broke the law. That’s what makes him a villain. It’s not his job or his looks. It’s the fact that he did something wrong.
As for all of the counts, I believe that all of the counts are valid, or they wouldn’t have stood. His attorney did ask for two-to-five years and, of course, the DA’s office, they asked me how I felt about it and I told them I was not comfortable with it. There’s no way I would feel comfortable with him getting out in five years and not killing me. So I told them the minimum that I would feel comfortable with was 15-20, so that’s what they’re standing with.”
War Machine is in jail awaiting his September trial. He has pleaded not guilty to the 32 charges.
The HBO investigation, which aired the evening of July 21, found that the rate of domestic abuse arrests among MMA fighters was more than three times higher than that of NFL players.
From the Huffington Post:
The show, citing the Bureau of Justice Statistics, states that for every 100,000 American men aged 18 to 39, 360 are arrested for domestic violence. That number drops to 210 for the NFL, they said, using numbers from the USA Today database.
Yet HBO’s own research — delving into the backgrounds of hundreds of American-born MMA fighters since 2003 throughout various weight classes — found that the adjusted rate among top-ranked MMA fighters skyrockets to 750.
Watch the clip below to hear reporter David Scott explain the concept of domestic violence to Bryant Gumbel:
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