Hi! I’m Jonathan. I’ve been a lot of things in my life—Soldier, lawyer, historian, video producer, message board poster. When I find the thing that works out, I’ll be sure to let you know.
Maybe you’re here because you’re a long-time reader or recently finished one of my books. Or, perhaps, you’ve accidentally clicked on a link and it’s too late to back out now.
Either way, welcome.
A bit about me and how I got here, writing for free online: I spent almost a decade with Bleacher Report, deep in the grind and highly online, covering combat sports, fighting the internet wars on Twitter and existing in a world built almost entirely around combat sports. I covered boxing, wrestling and MMA, traveling around the country to tell the athlete’s story. I had the opportunity to talk to many of my idols (including men like Dusty Rhodes, Kazushi Sakuraba and Mike Tyson), some of the most powerful and iconic figures in the entire sport’s world.
The truth is, as much as it hurt at the time, being downsized at Bleacher Report ended up being liberating. It was an exciting time, full of amazing experiences. I rode on the fighter bus to weigh ins with Rashad Evans for a story, went to a converted storage space in the middle of nowhere Alabama to meet Deontay Wilder, dropped the first MMA story to ever hit the lead spot on CNN.com and went hunting for ghost towns in the New Mexico desert with Greg Jackson.
As lovely as it all was, I had grown exhausted by the daily grind of the beat and forgotten what it was like to just be a fan and a regular person, someone who could sit down after work and just exist instead of immediately worrying about the next deadline or story pitch.
But I wasn’t quite done, at least not yet. There are still plenty of stories to tell, only now I can tell them on my own schedule, however I feel works best. These will mostly be book projects—as you may have seen recently, I’m working on long form projects about Pride Fighting Championships, wrestling pioneer Frank Gotch and a few other things we haven’t announced yet.
As much as I love concentrating on these long form explorations of a person or time period, I’ve gotten used to sharing my thoughts and experiences on a more regular basis. And, let’s face it, I suffer from an overwhelming desire to tell people what I think and to share some of the things I’ve learned over the years with interested readers.
That’s where this newsletter comes in.
Every week (at a minimum), I plan to write about the things in the wild and wooly world of combat sports that excite, interest and infuriate me. Along the way, I’ll talk to the athletes and decision makers who shape our experience as fans.
And I’ll make a bunch of lists.
So many lists.
I’m not sure what final form this experiment will take. There may be podcasts, e-books and more coming soon. Or maybe not! Either way, it’s absolutely free to sign up and I encourage you to do so.