Winkeljohn responds to ‘Bully’ accusations from Jackson-Wink staffers

Jackson-Wink MMA co-founder Mike Winkeljohn has come under criticism for heavy-handed behavior from several sources including president of Jackson’s MMA Ricky Kottenstette who referenced issues with coach Frank ‘The Tank’ Lester, which followed the pointed departure of longtime team member Donald ‘Cowboy’ Cerrone. Winkeljohn appeared recently on Submission radio and responded.

The bully thing caught me off guard, but there’s no doubt I understand that Ricky wouldn’t like me,” said Winkeljohn. “You know what, guess what? I do not like the guy. Let me think about this for a second. He ran three schools for Greg Jackson for a while, they all lost money. In fact, our big gym was losing money and was considered the best gym in the world and it was actually draining Greg Jackson’s other resources, but for some reason the manager was driving very, very nice exotic cars and living in a very nice home. Something was weird about that. So when Greg came to me and said, ‘look, this place is failing, I’m gonna have to close the doors,’ I said, ‘I got an idea, I’m just not taking that guy with me,’ and that being Ricky Kottenstette. So he’s no longer at our gym. And there’s some people that are unhappy with me I guess. I guess that I’m a jerk in that I expect people to show up on time, work hard, and not steal.

Winkeljohn was asked about Lester’s reference about Winkeljohn being willing to sell me out and f*** me over any chance he gets. 

Not from Frank,” replied Winkeljihn. “You know, Frank is very volatile. He’s up and down. He’s basically bipolar that way. Love him to death, you know, he’s one of those guys that I’d given him a second chance after he didn’t want to fight anymore because he was breaking the rules per se when he was fighting, so he wasn’t allowed to fight for us anymore. But I said, you know what, I want to give you a chance Frank, I want to turn you into a coach. He’s actually an independent contractor where I take actually zero of the dollars he earns working with the fighters in the gym. Unlike if you went to work for any other business, they would take a percentage. So I’m trying to help him out. So that’s surprising because I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do, other than give him 100 percent of the money that people pay, which is unheard of. Everyone thinks I’m an idiot for doing that, but I did that as an opportunity for some of the fighters. So yeah, I’m a little surprised at what he said. There’s no doubt about it, I gave him the opportunity to work with some of the best fighters in the world with not much experience, and yeah, there you go. I don’t know what I can do to him, other than the fact and say, ‘Hey, this is it. It’s my gym, my rules.’ And they’re not that tough. It’s basically, show up on time, don’t steal and do your job. And people might think I’m crazy for that, but you know, the only other choice is to become the Federal government and give people welfare, and that’s not what I’m all about.

“I’ll definitely talk to Frank. Here’s the deal, Frank just works with a couple of our high-level guys and that’s about it. So he’s working his way up. I’m giving him the opportunity to work his way up. But Frank or no Frank, the gym would be floating on its own just great. So I hope the best for him and I hope he turns around and decides to change his mind. But the gym is great right now. You know, it’s kind of amazing – all the crap on the internet, there’s nothing really in there that’s true, other than the fact that everyone is in the gym every day working out.

What’s funny is that I don’t even look at the internet, so I don’t even know what’s going on. People come tell me, they come running to me to tell me, but I could care less. I see it as we’re very successful, people want to take us down, they’re jealous of our success. And so I expect more and more of it to come in the future. I’m doing great, man. I love my job, I’m going to go in now and work with Jon Jones. I’m real excited about the future and I’m so glad I’m not doing anything else for a living.