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Transgender Fighter Fallon Fox and Her Slowly Fading 15 Minutes of Fame

Fallon Fox’s fifteen minutes of fame was inevitable the moment she got a phone call that changed everything.
It should have been a time for celebration, a dinner to celebrate the launch of something new. Fox, in just her second professional fight…

Fallon Fox’s fifteen minutes of fame was inevitable the moment she got a phone call that changed everything.

It should have been a time for celebration, a dinner to celebrate the launch of something new. Fox, in just her second professional fight, had won in devastating fashion, knocking out poor Ericka Newsome with a brutal knee in the clinch.

The ringing phone, and the reporter on the other end, changed the mood, glee turning to gloom in just a few seconds. The gist?

“I know.”

The reporter’s words were as chilling as they were inevitable. Her secret, one she had kept close to her heart for seven years even from close friends such as her trainer Joe Smith, was about to become very, very public.

Fox, profiled Tuesday night on HBO’s Real Sports was born Boyd Burton. She was about to become MMA‘s first openly transgender athlete.

Secrets are nothing new for Fox. It all started with a dress. At five, she put one on for the first time, one of her sister’s, and things clicked. It felt right.

And yet, the young man who went to church four times a week with his parents and two siblings knew it was wrong. And that God was watching.

“It’s likely to lead you to a pit of fire,” Fox told HBO’s Mary Carillo. “I was brought up with the idea that God is watching at all times. So I felt dirty, I felt worthless, I felt like I was going to hell. Just for putting on women’s clothes.”

And so Boyd Burton soldiered on, trying to leave his impulses and desires in the past and live his life as he was born—as a man. He wrestled in high school, knocked a girl up at 19, even joined the Navy to make ends meet. But it was all a lie.

Eventually, the truth spilled out. Boyd became Fallon, a 2006 surgery in Thailand making her outside match the woman she says always lurked within. Her daughter, amazingly, handled the change with grace.

“I think when kids are younger, they don’t have these preconceived notions of what a transsexual person is,” Fox told Sports Illustrated‘s Loretta Hunt. “I told her that I felt I should have been born a woman and that it was really, really important to me. I told her the doctor was going to help me become a woman. I told her that and she said, ‘Oh cool. Can we do something else now?'”

When she finally told her parents, the sailing was less smooth. Her mom all but disappeared from her life. Her dad insisted that she must be a gay man instead. Not because he was accepting of that—but because he knew a conversion therapist who could fix her. It was, she agreed, worth a try.

“I wanted to take the chance and see if it actually worked,” Fox told Carillo. “There was a lot on the line. Losing my family. Losing my friends. Losing my daughter. I was going to go to hell in a lake of fire with no possibility of parole.”

When it turned out a fixation on sports and a steady stream of Die Hard flicks didn’t do the trick, it was back to plan A. Boyd became Fallon, in body as well as soul.

The mixed martial arts community, in short, has not greeted Fox with open arms. Her very first opponent as an openly transgender fighter blared Aerosmith’s “Dude (Looks Like a Lady)” on her way to the ring. A fan in the crowd got big laughs with a simple piece of advice—”kick her in the balls.”

But the uproar wasn’t limited to the Florida regional scene. Her revelation led to an outcry from fans, media and fighters all across the country, all sure her biological beginnings gave her an unacceptable edge in the cage. While scientists disagree, that’s never stopped anyone from voicing his opinion.

UFC announcer Joe Rogan led the charge with a vile rant:

She calls herself a woman but…I tend to disagree. She used to be a man but now she has had, she’s a transgender, which is the official term that means you’ve gone through it, right? And she wants to be able to fight women in MMA. I say no f—ing way.

I say if you had a d–k at one point in time, you also have all the bone structure that comes with having a d–k. You have bigger hands, you have bigger shoulder joints. You’re a f—ing man. That’s a man, OK? I don’t care if you don’t have a d–k any more.

Fighter Matt Mitrione got in on the act, telling MMA Fighting’s Ariel Helwani that Fox was a “lying, sick, sociopathic, disgusting freak. And I mean that.”

Women’s champion Ronda Rousey was equally as crude, telling The New York Post (via Bloody Elbow.com):

She can try hormones, chop her pecker off, but it’s still the same bone structure a man has. It’s an advantage. I don’t think it’s fair.

A year later, little has changed. Just last week, Rousey was in the headlines again, this time for referring to fellow fighter Cris Cyborg as “it” instead of “she.” If change is coming, it’s on a slow train.

MMA, it seems, is not ready for Fallon Fox. And that’s a problem.

Unfortunately, Fallon Fox is not ready for high-level MMA, either. And that eliminates the most obvious solution—let her rise to the top on merit, critics be damned.

As with every mainstream story covering Fox’s tale, you don’t get a sense of Fox’s rightful place in the sport’s hierarchy. The truth is, the only reason anyone beyond the most hardcore fans in Florida have ever heard of Fox is because of the controversy surrounding her transformation.

She was one of the opening acts on the regional level. Now 38 years old, with delusions of grandeur shattered by Ashlee Evans-Smith, it’s likely that’s all she’ll ever be.

Fox’s is a sad and compelling tale. I’m glad it’s been told. I hope there’s a happy ending. But, as I said last year, I don’t want to hear about her again unless it’s because of what she does, not who she is. That’s the best way to embrace Fox—by treating her just like everybody else.

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Watch Out Fabricio Werdum: UFC Champ Cain Velasquez Is No Travis Browne

The new Fabricio Werdum truly emerged against Travis Browne in the third round of their title eliminator on Fox. In the classic Brazilian “butt scoot” position, Werdum challenged Browne to hit the mat and roll around with him a bit. Browne, wisely, wan…

The old Werdum would have made quite a petulant show of it. A ground-first fighter, he had managed to capture not a single heart or mind in his 12-year career despite beating a who’s who of the sport’s best heavyweights.

The new Werdum?

He simply smiled, kipped up like he was the second coming of The Rock, a fairly flabbergasting feat for a man approaching 260 pounds, and proceeded to walk over and continue beating Browne to a pulp.

“Werdum has been fooling all of us,” Fox Sports 2 analyst Chael Sonnen said after the fight. “He doesn’t have to take you down to beat you. He just Muay Thai’s you to death.”

It’s been a transformation a long time coming. Werdum, who entered the top level of the sport as Pride Fight Championship star Mirko “Cro Cop” Filipovic’s training partner and jiu-jitsu coach, has been diligently adding significant stand-up skills to his collection of tools for a decade.

Now, at 36, it’s all finally coming together. And it couldn’t be happening at a better time. Werdum will challenge heavyweight champion Cain Velasquez for the UFC belt in his next fight, the first title shot of his long and surprisingly storied career. And while he doesn‘t need me to tell him this, it’s worth noting—Velasquez is no Travis Browne.

Browne, a monster in the first round, faded quickly once the fight went longer than five minutes. Browne had rarely even been beyond the first stanza in his entire career—seven of his nine UFC fights ended in the initial moments.

His heaving breaths and injury issues were an opportunity for Werdum to finish the fight. Instead, he carefully chose his moments, preferring the secure win to the spectacular knockout.

“Werdum could have finished the fight,” UFC president Dana White said at the post-fight press conference. “He played it safe at the end to get the shot at the title.”

That’s an option that won’t be there against Velasquez, who often looks like he could fight 10 rounds without a pause. Against an exhausted Browne, Werdum had the freedom to smile and pick his spots.

That luxury doesn‘t exist when you’re in the cage with Velasquez. He comes forward, mixing punches, kicks and takedowns in dizzying combination, and he doesn‘t stop until the final bell rings. It’s a pace that’s placed him second all-time in strikes landed per minute, almost unthinkable for a heavyweight.

MMA Junkie’s Ben Fowlkes explains:

That’s the great strength of Velasquez. Sure, he’s also fast and powerful and utterly unrelenting, but mostly he’s methodical. It’s as if he’s got a factory setting that’s just a few RPMs higher than most heavyweights, and he never slows down or speeds up as the fight progresses. He doesn’t take rounds off. He doesn’t freak out trying to finish. You can’t intimidate him or wear him down or get him to spend energy he doesn’t have. He’s got the fighting style of a torpedo and the personality to match.

As scary as Velasquez is, Werdum couldn’t ask for a better time to step into the cage with him. Velasquez, who had surgery to repair a torn labrum in his left shoulder at the end of 2013, will be battling his own body and significant ring rust. Werdum may also possess the Kryptonite to disrupt Velasquez’s normal fight strategy.

The champion likes to keep the fight standing, using takedowns when he sees openings or when he feels pressured. But a decision to take Werdum to the ground can’t be made casually.

“Cain said he wanted to fight Travis Browne because he knows he could take him down and win the fight,” Werdum told Fox Sports’ Brian Stann after the fight. “But he knows when he takes me down, that’s the start of the fight.”

In short, the fight between two increasingly well-rounded fighters might devolve into a classic battle that has defined mixed martial arts since the sport’s inception: wrestling against Brazilian jiu-jitsu. It’s a battle Velasquez has won throughout his career, dispatching Brazilian jiu-jitsu black belts Antonio Rodrigo Nogueira and Antonio Silva in relatively smooth sailing.

If Werdum does manage to take the UFC title from Velasquez, it begs some serious historical questions. Most pundits agree that Velasquez, Nogueira and Fedor Emelianenko are the best heavyweights of all time. Should he beat Cain, Werdum would own victories over all three.

Suddenly, you can see how much this fight means. Werdum is fighting for his first title and his legacy in a single bout. Perhaps that’s why his grin was so wide in every post-fight interview?

“It’s been my dream for a long time,” he said. Unfortunately for Werdum, dreams all too often turn ugly against Velasquez.

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Watch out Fabricio Werdum: UFC Champ Cain Velasquez Is No Travis Browne

The new Werdum?

He simply smiled, kipped up like he was the second coming of The Rock, a fairly flabbergasting feat for a man approaching 260 pounds, and proceeded to walk over and continue beating Browne to a pulp.

“Werdum has been fooling all of us,” Fox Sports 2 analyst Chael Sonnen said after the fight. “He doesn’t have to take you down to beat you. He just Muay Thai’s you to death.”

His heaving breaths and injury issues were an opportunity for Werdum to finish the fight. Instead, he carefully chose his moments, preferring the secure win to the spectacular knockout.

“Werdum could have finished the fight,” UFC president Dana White said at the post-fight press conference. “He played it safe at the end to get the shot at the title.”

That’s an option that won’t be there against Velasquez, who often looks like he could fight ten rounds without a pause. Against an exhausted Browne, Werdum had the freedom to smile and pick his spots.

MMA Junkie’s Ben Fowlkes explains:

That’s the great strength of Velasquez. Sure, he’s also fast and powerful and utterly unrelenting, but mostly he’s methodical. It’s as if he’s got a factory setting that’s just a few RPMs higher than most heavyweights, and he never slows down or speeds up as the fight progresses. He doesn’t take rounds off. He doesn’t freak out trying to finish. You can’t intimidate him or wear him down or get him to spend energy he doesn’t have. He’s got the fighting style of a torpedo and the personality to match.

The champion likes to keep the fight standing, using takedowns when he sees openings or when he feels pressured. But a decision to take Werdum to the ground can’t be made casually.

Suddenly, you can see how much this fight means. Werdum is fighting for his first title and his legacy in a single bout. Perhaps that’s why his grin was so wide in every post-fight interview?

“It’s been my dream for a long time,” he said. Unfortunately for Werdum, against Velasquez dreams all too often turn ugly.

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The Ronda Rousey Sweepstakes: How Cris Cyborg Lost More Than a Fight

It’s not really fair to say MMA standout Cris “Cyborg” Justino lost big at Lion Fight 14 Friday night in Las Vegas. After all, in just her third professional kickboxing match, Cyborg gave Jorina Baars, an undefeated Dutch standout, all she could handle…

But life isn’t fair. Anyone who says otherwise, to borrow from a great man, is selling something.

For five rounds Cyborg did what she always does—she charged forward with a startling recklessness, looking to end the fight quickly. When Cyborg managed to close the distance and get into the pocket, Baars found herself thrown to the mat or fending off haymakers, hanging on for dear life.

Cyborg was a vicious, snarling animal.

Business as usual.

That wasn’t, however, the story of the fight. Though Cyborg controlled the bulk of the action, the unanimous decision win for Baars was written in the few moments the inexperienced MMA champion gambled and lost. When Baars circled away or timed Cyborg’s inbound trajectory properly, she made rangy knees and rangier push kicks to the face count, putting Cyborg on the mat or wobbling her several times with brilliant shots to the head.

Baars talked to MMA Fighting’s Shaun Al-Shatti after the fight:

I’m a Muay Thai fighter. She’s an MMA fighter…I will beat her. That’s every opponent, I will beat them. It’s my sport. It’s my style…The gameplan was to put Cris in my range and stick with the knees, and when she comes in, put a knee up or a kick push attempt in her face. It worked.

In a perfect world, we’d be celebrating Cyborg’s accomplishment. Although just 25 years old, Baars was an undefeated fighter entering her 38th professional fight. If there’s such a thing as a moral victory, this was certainly one. Baars is so feared on the kickboxing circuit, in fact, that no one has been willing to fight her for three years.

Most fans will soon forget Cyborg’s valiant showing. They’ll forget that after the first couple of rounds Cyborg took control of the fight. They’ll forget it wasn’t an MMA fight at all. All that will remain from this bout is a single letter—the “L.”

And, for a fighter looking to get into the UFC Octagon for a big-money showdown with bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, that might have been a costly “L” indeed.

Like Cyborg, Rousey is a strong, aggressive athlete who likes to charge her opponent and impose her will. A match between the two is the rare fight that delivers both sport and spectacle. It’s strength against strength, grappling against striking and, yes, beauty against the beast.

Cyborg versus Rousey was potentially the biggest blockbuster in the history of women’s combat sports. Unfortunately for Cyborg, that all just went up in smoke. To most American fans, Baars is a non-entity, a glorified tomato can brought in to give the more famous Cyborg some light work.

Ridiculous? Yes. But perception, as Fox Sports’ Marc Raimondi reminds us, matters more than mere fact:

Like it or not, Cyborg’s loss will have a huge effect on her potential future with the UFC. Before now, Cyborg had a ton of leverage. The kind of leverage held by someone who hasn’t lost a combat sports bout in nine years. She doesn’t have that anymore.

Nothing, in the real world at least, has changed. Cyborg is the same threat to Rousey she was before stepping into the ring with Baars.

On Bizarro Earth, however, the one run by Twitter, message-board partisans and MMA media in the spin zone, everything has changed.

The UFC, clearly, wasn’t very interested in Cyborg in the first place. Only her fearsome reputation and pure perfection kept her name in the mix for a Rousey bout. Now, even that is gone.

Cyborg has less leverage and less ground to stand on than ever. If she comes into the Zuffa fold now, it will be on their terms, not on hers. She will need to rehabilitate herself with several UFC bouts before facing off with Rousey. The chance of jumping right into the main event is gone along with the chink in her armor.

The pain inflicted by Baars will fade with time. The damage to her invincible reputation is permanent.

Cris Cyborg, for the time being, is damaged goods.

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The Ronda Rousey Sweepstakes: How Cris Cyborg Lost More Than a Fight

But life isn’t fair. Anyone who says otherwise, to borrow from a great man, is selling something.

Cyborg was a vicious, snarling animal.

Business as usual.

“The gameplan was to put Cris in my range and stick with the knees, and when she comes in, put a knee up or a kick push attempt in her face,” Baars told MMA Fighting’s Shaun Al-Shatti after the fight. “It worked…I’m a Muay Thai fighter. She’s an MMA fighter. I will beat her. That’s every opponent, I will beat them. It’s my sport. It’s my style.”

And, for a fighter looking to get into the UFC Octagon for a big-money showdown with bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey, that might have been a costly “L” indeed.

Ridiculous? Yes. But perception, as Fox Sports’ Marc Raimondi reminds us, matters more than mere fact:

Like it or not, Cyborg’s loss will have a huge effect on her potential future with the UFC. Before now, Cyborg had a ton of leverage. The kind of leverage held by someone who hasn’t lost a combat sports bout in nine years. She doesn’t have that anymore.

Nothing, in the real world at least, has changed. Cyborg is the same threat to Rousey she was before stepping into the ring with Baars.

On Bizarro Earth, however, the one run by Twitter, message-board partisans and MMA media in the spin zone, everything has changed. The pain inflicted by Baars will fade with time. The damage to her reputation is permanent.

Cris Cyborg is damaged goods.

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Dear Ronda Rousey: Enough with the Four Horsewomen Stuff—You Don’t Measure Up

Mixed martial arts, the velvet painting of the sports world, is coated with a sheen of the ridiculous. Like its artistic counterpart, it’s something you’re likely to see at a country fair. It’s gaudy and awful and you can’t look away.
But the colors po…

But the colors pop like nothing else, and honestly, who doesn’t love the athletic equivalent of dogs playing poker now and then?

Everything about it is lurid and over the top. Vladimir Putin, a cartoon of a man, is a fan for God’s sake. The violence is absurd, eight limbs competing to bludgeon, choke and twist. The fighters are a cornucopia of tattooed glory, men with a decided lack of father figures and/or aptitude for more prestigious and lucrative sports.

Even the authority figures, Dana White in the UFC and Bjorn Rebney in Bellator, are living caricatures of an aging bro and sleazy car salesman, respectively. In this sport, the company president can lie with a straight face and then turn around and direct an expletive-ridden tweet at a fan or reporter. And no one will blink.

The only thing more ridiculous than the fighters are the fans who battle an inferiority complex that may never quite disappear. Mixed martial arts is most certainly not serious business.

I lead with this just so you understand that I get it. While I recognize that the consequences can be all too serious, the sport itself is a constant comedy show. I don’t decry tomfoolery. I am all for it! You won’t see me crying crocodile tears about who “deserves” title shots or attempting to stifle fun voices on the fringe like Nick Diaz and Chael Sonnen.

But there has to be a line. Some subjects are simply too sacrosanct to be broached without some significant thought. And that’s why I demand, loudly and publicly, that UFC women’s bantamweight champion Ronda Rousey stop comparing herself and her posse to the iconic Four Horsemen.

Girls just want to have fun. I understand. And what’s not fun about pro wrestling, a fake version of mixed martial arts where the violence and the muscular bodies defy even our wildest imaginations? Pro wrestling is the best. Watch this delightfully deranged Ultimate Warrior video and see if you can stop yourself from smiling.

The Horsemen, however, are no laughing matter. In parts of the South, in the 1980s at least, they were all but a religion. You might, in fact, miss church on Sundays. It was known to happen. But no self-respecting Southerner would ever miss their wrestling fix.

For decades, it was a tradition we could count on. At 6:05 p.m. on Saturday night, a generation of young men could be found gathered around the boob tube. Powered by Jim Crockett Promotions and the mighty satellite in the sky that beamed Ted Turner’s channel 17 nationwide, wrestling ruled the airwaves.

And the Four Horsemen ruled wrestling.

Ric Flair was the leader. As the world heavyweight champion, it was his right and his place. Bleached blond, masculine yet flamboyant and never at a loss for words, he was the epitome of the cocky villain.

At his right hand stood Arn Anderson. A storyline cousin, he was the no-nonsense enforcer. You understood, implicitly, that he was a man who would sacrifice body, soul and even his own ambitions to keep Flair safe. A secondary title belt and a seat at the table were more than enough for “Double A.”

To the champion’s left was Tully Blanchard, the poor man’s Flair. Like “The Nature Boy,” Blanchard was a smooth, Scotch-drinking sophisticate. He wined and dined with the best of them. Rocked the sequin robes. Coveted. While Anderson was loyalty, you could practically see Blanchard’s gears turning. He didn’t want to be Flair’s protege forever. He wanted to be Flair.

The fourth man, in the beginning, was Ole Anderson. A gritty veteran with a gift for violence and gab in equal measure, Anderson and his brother Gene owned wrestling in the Carolinas and Georgia throughout the 1970s. Though he never quite fit in conceptually, he was a bridge to wrestling’s past, royalty if misplaced.

There had been factions in wrestling before the Horsemen. But to compare the Heenan Family to the Horsemen is to compare an Oldsmobile to a Ferrari.

In 1986, the Horsemen were now. Rocking Rolexes, barely buttoned Armani suits and Italian shoes, they were a small taste of luxury. They talked it and walked it, winning every title belt that mattered.

Women wanted them, and men wanted to be them.

They were bad guys but in name only. Wrestling, so long the domain of black and white, was changing. The Horsemen were the villains—but they were the bad guys that fans couldn’t help but love. Fans started coming to the matches dressed to the nines, their best suit a solid proxy for Flair’s finery.

Yes, they beat the living hell out of Dusty Rhodes, an overweight and overbearing older star hanging onto faded glory. They brutally assaulted the Rock ‘n’ Roll Express, babyfaced pretty boys that your girlfriend likely thought about way too often.

Was that really a bad thing? Wasn’t there a small part of us that reveled in it all? That wanted to raise those four fingers and let out a long, soulful “Woooooo!”

Just thinking about the Four Horsemen makes me happy. I doubt I’m alone.

Which brings us, ever so slowly, to Rousey. The new queen of the UFC, she is one of the sport’s brightest stars. She combines unspeakable swagger with a killer instinct unlike any we’ve ever seen from a female fighter. Part Flair, part Anderson, she’s in the process of building a legend every bit as bright as her male peers.

Along the way, like many fighters, she’s found her lifemates on the mat. Marina Shafir is her longtime friend and training partner. Jessamyn Duke is her protege, a young fighter whom she adopted while filming The Ultimate Fighter and decided to keep. Shayna Baszler is the grizzled veteran, a catch-wrestling practitioner who was fighting before the spotlight shined bright.

Baszler, a lifelong wrestling fan, has made WWE Raw a staple of their household.

“Since Shayna moved in, our group activity is that we sit down and watch Raw and all this stuff together,” Rousey told After Buzz TV. “It’s like our little family time…Shayna totally converted our whole house into a super pro wrestling house.“

Like all right-thinking people, they’ve gravitated toward the Horsemen. Nearly 30 years after they first came onto the scene, the power of the idea is still that strong.

It’s easy, in fact, to place their Horsemen analogues. Ronda—the blond, bombastic champion—is Flair. Marina, her rock, is Arn. Jessamyn, young and not quite ready to cede dominance to Ronda forever, is Tully. And Shayna is Ole, the holdover from a previous generation.

But just because you can make a comparison doesn’t mean you should. What made the Horsemen special was each man’s individual accomplishments and pedigree. It was a special conglomerate because they were all champions in their own right.

The women’s version has just one star—Rousey. The other women merely float in her orbit. Duke has yet to prove herself. Shafir hasn’t even made her professional debut. Baszler, a gutsy and valiant fighter, has never stepped up and proved herself to be a legitimate world-class competitor.

This isn’t the Four Horsemen. It’s Lady Flair and the Job Squad.

MMA and pro wrestling share a common heritage. In many ways they are mirror images of each other. It makes sense for concepts to float between them, the way Sonnen borrowed Superstar Billy Graham and unleashed him on an unsuspecting populace.

Graham, however, was an archetype. His patter, in turn, was borrowed from Muhammad Ali and Thunderbolt Patterson.

The Horsemen are bigger than that. They are a piece of Americana, among the greatest performance artists of their era. You cannot possibly recreate them. Should you try, you could never succeed.

Take something else from wrestling. Be silly. Mimic a match before training. Be the next NWO. Carry an oversized cell phone and call yourselves the Dangerous Alliance. But leave the Horsemen out of it. Some shoes are too big to fill.

Wooo!

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