The Rear Naked Choke, Featuring Joe & Ted

On Oct. 22, 2007, “The Rear Naked Choke, Featuring Joe & Ted” was introduced as the new name of the show. The original name was “The R.O.N. Show, Featuring Joe & Ted: Mundane Family Entertainment”. Somewhere along the line, the tag line “With a Rear Naked Choke” was added to the original title by James “The Kitch” Kitcher.

Thus, the first thing many people - including Matt Lindland - asked Joe & Ted when they heard the name of the show was “Who is Ron?” Now they have a title that will tell them a lot about the content of the program.

The show’s focus turned to MMA (mixed martial arts), and the International Fight League (IFL) in particular, when Emily “Ring Girl” Miller became it’s first “real” guest - meaning someone neither Joe nor Ted had met before. That was March 2007.

The hosts are Joe & Ted.

Joe & Ted met in fifth grade.

Living in neighboring North Jersey towns, Ted grew up as the best friend of Ron, who transferred to Joe’s grammar school for the start of fifth grade. Joe met Ted when he would hang out with Ron, who always hung out with Ted, who followed Ron into the same school in time for sixth grade.

Joe and Ted were friends, but became best buddies in the summer heading into their senior year in high school. One random day when Ron was working as a cashier at a local grocery store, Joe & Ted happened to meet up on the road and decided to go see Ron. Joe & Ted brought 12 rolls of toilet paper to the register in an effort to get Ron to ring it up, with the intention of then just walking out the door. Ron was wise to it and Joe & Ted were foiled in their plot, but a great friendship had flourished.

Later that same day, Joe & Ted began to talk about Ron, and they have not stopped since, some 20-plus years later. During one of their near daily phone conversations in 2006, Joe & Ted hatched the idea for a podcast. Thus, The R.O.N. Show was originated.

In the early episodes of the show, the guys were figuring out how to run the podcast, trying to find their chemistry, and just feeling out where the idea would bring them. They had a lot of friends and colleagues step up and become sacrificial lambs as guests. To their pleasant surprise, many of these guests produced interesting content and helped make the show better.

Opportunity began to knock when Joe introduced Ted to the IFL, a team-based mixed martial arts organization. Joe & Ted decided to utilize their unprecedented access to all things and people related to the IFL in order to further the program.

Focusing more on the entertainment aspect rather than the nuts-and-bolts of MMA competition, Joe & Ted chose their first-ever “famous” guest to be Emily, one of the IFL’s original two ring girls. The response was so positive that the guys increased their timeline for their first live streaming show 2 ½ months to May 19, 2007 when they stormed Chicago for a two-hour event before the throw-down in the ring.

After going through a number of producers, namely Charles and Taylor, The Rear Naked Choke finally got a huge boost in January 2008 when Debbie Rizzo grabbed the role. Debbie has helped usher in the transition to the video live stream and the adjustment to covering all MMA promotions.

You can count on Joe & Ted to give you the best of MMA, and do it from a different angle. To date, the show has broadcast live from the locations on the map below. Remember, we may be coming to your neck of the woods … LIVE!!!!