Mike Winkeljohn

The striking complement

Mike Winkeljohn is the striking-coaching partner to Greg Jackson at Jackson Wink MMA Academy. Where Jackson's specialty is strategic game-plan architecture, Winkeljohn's is technical striking refinement — the specific techniques and timing that execute the strategic vision.

Winkeljohn's competitive background was in kickboxing (he was an active K-1 and Muay Thai competitor in the 1980s-90s) before transitioning to MMA coaching in the early 2000s. The Jackson partnership formalized in 2009 with the creation of Jackson Wink MMA Academy.

The athletes

• Jon Jones — UFC LHW + heavyweight champion
• Holly Holm — UFC women's bantamweight champion
• Carlos Condit — UFC interim welterweight champion
• Donald Cerrone (formerly) — UFC's most-active fighter

The Winkeljohn-coached striking is responsible for some of the iconic UFC moments:

• Jon Jones's oblique kicks: developed under Winkeljohn as the disruption strike that defined Jones's LHW reign.
• Jon Jones's spinning back elbows: refined as Winkeljohn-system clinch finishers.
• Holly Holm's head kick KO of Ronda Rousey (UFC 193): the timing-based counter-striking that exploited Rousey's forward-pressure entry.
• Donald Cerrone's body kick attack: developed as the Winkeljohn-coached cumulative damage strike.

The coaching philosophy

Winkeljohn's coaching emphasizes:

• Timing-based counter striking: reading the opponent's strike loading and countering before it lands.
• Distance management: footwork patterns that produce the right range for the planned strike.
• Technique refinement: extensive repetition of specific strikes for championship-level precision.
• Strategic integration: striking development that supports the broader Jackson game-plan vision.

The Cerrone departure

Donald Cerrone's 2017 departure from Jackson Wink included public-facing critique of Winkeljohn's striking program. Cerrone's complaint — that the technical-refinement focus produced predictability — reflected the broader Jackson Wink coaching-style tension that drove multiple roster departures.

Cerrone's post-Jackson-Wink coaching with various other camps produced mixed competitive results, which influenced the broader MMA commentary on whether the Cerrone-Jackson-Wink split was a coaching disagreement or a more-fundamental athletic decline.

The legacy

Mike Winkeljohn's striking-coaching legacy is most-visible in the specific strikes he developed for championship-level athletes. The Jones oblique kicks, the Holm head-kick KO timing, and the Cerrone body-attack catalog are technical contributions that have influenced subsequent MMA striking coaches.

The Jackson-Winkeljohn coaching partnership is the most-decorated strategic-and-technical pair in MMA history.