If you followed War Machine’s various Twitter ramblings during the last couple of weeks, you had to fear the worst for Our Hero in his fight with John Alessio at Tachi Palace Fights 5 on Friday. There was way too much tweeting about boozing, pill popping and hopes for impending civil war going on for War to be truly focused on training. Not to mention that next week he’s due to report for a one year stay in the San Diego County sneezer for violating his probation in a self-described “lame bar fight.”

Nonetheless, War apparently had an overriding desire to climb inside the cage one more time before he tucks into his county blues and jumped at the chance to step in on short notice for the injured Brad Blackburn at Tachi. Alessio was only too happy to oblige, dominating their fight through two full rounds before shutting off the lights with a rear naked choke two minutes, 24 seconds into the third.

It was War Machine’s machine’s second loss in three bouts, but the fighter -- who is such a rebel that even his tweets often exceed the allotted 140 characters -- still seemed pretty pleased with himself, all things considered.

“Out of shape as could be but still made it to the 3rd round!” He posted to his Twitter account on Saturday. “And heck no I didn't tap! Went to sleep like a real man! Oh well what do u expect trained 5 days! Haha!”

War didn’t exactly make weight for the fight either, deciding to say “Forget it, good enough” after he got to 173-pounds during his cut. There was also some trouble with the California State Athletic Commission, something about an existing suspension in Georgia for a fight he dropped out of back in April. The CSAC demanded a letter of apology before they would allow him to compete and we assume War Machine got one of his literate friends to write it for him.

Tachi promoters had a local fighter ready to step in to fight Alessio if the commission pulled the plug on War Machine, but the CSAC eventually decided to let him fight. You know, for the good of humanity.

Alessio scored his fifth win in a row with the choke out victory.
-Cage Potato
-Italicized words are words that I changed to comply with our TOS
War Machine has some major issues...