War Machine now wants to make peace.
The former mixed martial arts standout sentenced last year to life in prison for sexually assaulting and kidnapping his former porn star girlfriend is now writing love letters to his pen pal fiancée, TMZ Sports reports.
“I feel a pain inside,” wrote the fighter, who legally changed his name from Jonathan Paul Koppenhaver during his MMA career. “The love we share brings me to tears. I’m desperate to fully express it but there aren’t adequate words, nor will I live enough years for this is an eternal love.”
TMZ reported last week that the 36-year-old Koppenhaver, who won’t be eligible for parole until he’s 71, is engaged to Ashley Farrington, a 30-year-old woman who started writing Koppenhaver last summer. The pen-pal relationship then escalated to visits at Ely State Prison in Nevada — where conjugal visits aren’t allowed — before Koppenhaver popped the question in February without even having a ring.
“Were you once in me?” Koppenhaver’s letter continued. “What did God do? Did he cut me open and make out of me, a you? Is that why words fail to express, and why I feel that, for you, I must bleed?”
Koppenhaver also told Farrington he wants to be her “hero” and said he would “gladly die” for the love of his life.
“I want to be your hero, for you I’d gladly die,” the letter read. “You must know that my love is true in deed and here we have the greatest mystery solved, of why Christ came to die. Words must have failed him too, a man needs his love to know he’s no lie.”
Koppenhaver was sentenced in June 2017 to life in prison with possibility of parole after 36 years. He was convicted for brutally attacking his ex-girlfriend, Christine Mackinday — better known as former porn star Christy Mack — and her male companion after finding the couple in bed in her Las Vegas home.
A tearful Mack told a judge during Koppenhaver’s sentencing she believes he would kill her if he’s ever released from prison. For his part, Koppenhaver said he regretted the attack and said something wasn’t right in his head “plain and simple.”
“There’s not a day that goes by that I don’t seriously regret all of the things that I did,” Koppenhaver said during the hearing. “I was a very, very lost and very empty person.”
Koppenhaver, whose last MMA fight was in 2013, later apologized to Mack in a statement posted on Twitter. He also invited Mack to visit him behind bars.