Feb 20, 2017 5 min read

Waynesburg native Josh Koscheck has been delighting and irritating mixed martial arts fans for a dozen years since he first burst onto the scene as an origial member of “The Ultimate Fighter” house.

That show, which first aired on Spike TV in 2005, helped put mixed martial arts in the mainstream. In addition to Koscheck, who gave up working as a college wrestling coach to take up MMA, the show featured a ridiculously talented bunch, including Forrest Griffin, Stephan Bonnar, Diego Sanchez, Mike Swick, Kenny Florian and Chris Leben.

If you’re a fan of MMA, and the show was instrumental in creating millions of new viewers of the sport, you’re quite familiar with those names.

And Koscheck, playing the role of the bad guy, was one of the brightest stars.

He was brash. He was bombastic. He liked to stir the pot. And he backed it up in the octagon.

“The whole thing is getting your hand raised,” Koscheck said. “From a kid, I was four years old and wrestling, that’s all I cared about.”

All good things, however, must come to an end. And it appears the end is here for Koscheck, once one of the top welterweights in the world.

Saturday night, ironically fighting on the same channel where his career got its start, Koscheck suffered his sixth consecutive MMA defeat in his debut for the UFC’s main rival, Bellator.

And it wasn’t pretty.

Though the now 39-year-old former Waynesburg High School football and wrestling star didn’t suffer a lot of damage, it’s now obvious that 28 career professional fights in a 12-year span have taken their toll on his body.

He was beaten by Mauricio Alonso, who is far from a household name in MMA circles, via TKO in 4:42, first getting stunned by a straight right and then dropped moments later.

It has now been five years since his last win for Koscheck, who was stepping into the octagon for the first time since leaving the UFC after a string of losses that included defeats at the hands of rising superstars and future title holders such as Johny Hendricks, Robbie Lawler, Tyron Woodley.

Those defeats, while surely painful for Koscheck, were understandable.

But his last three losses to solid, but certainly not contending fighters, Jake Ellenberger, Erick Silva and Alonso show it’s probably time for Koscheck to step away from the sport as a fighter.

Though he hasn’t announced anything officially, he admitted as much after weigh-ins on Friday.

“You never know,” Koscheck said when asked if it might be his last fight. “If I go out there and stink it up and have a (crappy) night, I’m going to be questioning myself and everybody else is going to be questioning. My last couple of fights haven’t been the best, but I was fighting some killers. Three of the guys in my last five fights were champions, are champions. Those all could have been title fights. But if I go out there and stink it up, it’s going to be real hard to get me back in training camp.”

At 17-11, his record isn’t as sparkling as it once was. When he stepped into the octagon with Georges St. Pierre Dec. 11, 2010 at the top of the card in UFC 124 with the welterweight championship on the line, Koscheck sported a 15-4 record and reputation for being willing to fight anyone at a moment’s notice.

And why not? As one of just 105 people to be a four-time All-America wrestler at the collegiate level at Edinboro, where he also was a national champion, Koscheck’s ground skills were among the best in the business.

He also was so good as a high football player, he was named the Observer-Reporter’s player of the year in that sport in his senior year for the Raiders.

But in the loss to Alonso, Koscheck didn’t attempt one takedown.

As Koscheck climbed the ladder of success in the UFC, he was known as a top-notch wrestler who also had plenty of power in his right hand. But he displayed none of that wrestling skill against Alonso, likely because injuries which had kept him sidelined for the past two years, robbed him of much of his world-class agility.

Koscheck had to receive medical clearance for the fight against Alonso. He reportedly had suffered nerve damage in his left arm from years of fighting following a surgery to fuse vertabrae in his neck.

As the owner of a successful MMA gym in Fresno, Cal., Dethrone Mixed Martial Arts, the only reason for Koscheck to fight was because he missed the competition. But at some point, even that has to take a backseat.

“At my age of 39, I’m happy. I’m in a good place,” Koscheck admitted last week. “I don’t need to come in here to fight to pay bills. I’ve done pretty well for myself.”

That he has.

In fact, if you look at the past 20 years, Koscheck might be the most successful professional athlete to come out of the area.

He paved the way for a lot of high school and collegiate wrestlers, showing them they could continue to make money with the skills from their sport.

He’s got nothing left to prove. And he put on a heck of a show and made a lot of money along the way, setting himself up for life using what he learned in the gyms of Waynesburg and Edinboro.

Despite his recent string of losses, he can and should walk away from the sport with his head held high.

He was the heel for many people, but as he always used to say, the bad guys get paid, too.

Dale Lolley can be reached at dlolley@observer-reporter.com.