Source: USA TODAY

Fallon Fox thought she’d be a famous pro fighter some day. But she thought it would be for the fighting part, and only after she had done enough to justify the attention.

She was wrong, and also maybe a little naive.

“I’m the first transsexual fighter in MMA,” said Fox (2-0). “Like, ever. It’s always going to be part of the narrative, but I’ll deal with it. I’ll try my best to use it to my advantage.”

So far, that’s what she’s doing. The added publicity is good news for the Florida-based Championship Fighting Alliance promotion she fights for, and for the AXS TV cable network that recently secured the rights to broadcast her Friday fight against Allanna Jones (2-1) at Miami’s Bank-United Center (9p.m. ET).

Whether it will work out as well for Fox in the end is another question.

Fox, 37, was born male, underwent gender reassignment surgery in Thailand in 2006 and began an amateur fighting career in 2011. She turned pro in 2012 and won her debut via first-round TKO, while keeping her past as a man secret from all but a few trusted friends and training partners.

But after her 39-second knockout win in the first round of the CFA’s women’s 145-pound tournament, she received a call from an MMAjunkie.com reporter that let her know her secret was about to come out. Fox told her story for the first time to Sports Illustrated in March and since has been at the center of a heated and sometimes vitriolic debate.

“It’s about what I thought it would be,” Fox said of the reaction within the MMA community, which has included support from some fellow fighters as well as condemnation from others.

“I’ve always known, ever since I was competing in jiu-jitsu and grappling tournaments, this was a possibility,” Fox told USA TODAY Sports in a phone interview. “I guess I was mentally preparing myself for it. I wasn’t sure how I’d deal with it, other than to tell myself that on a long enough timeline this would happen. I don’t know if you can ever really be prepared for a situation like this.”

CFA founder Jorge de la Noval could say the same thing. When the Cuban-born fight promoter first signed Fox to compete in his tournament, he thought he was getting just another female fighter. The Monday after her fight, he got a call from the Florida State Boxing Commission informing him there might be a problem with her license.

“I was in shock, to be honest with you,” de la Noval said. “I didn’t even know what a transgender was. But my reaction was, we’ll support her. I called her right away and told her, ‘Don’t be afraid. We’ll stand behind you.’”

When the news broke, de la Noval said, some women in the tournament wanted to withdraw rather than face an opponent who had lived most of her life as a man.

“But fast-forward three months, and now every girl out there wants to fight Fallon Fox,” de la Noval said. “Now they’ll not only be fighting a female with skills, they’ll be fighting a celebrity.”

Fox has been cleared to compete, and CFA has been picked up by AXS TV, the cable network owned in part by Mark Cuban. AXS TV Fights CEO Andrew Simon said the network will continue to broadcast CFA events with or without Fox but added, “We know there is huge interest in Fallon Fox, as well as the heavyweight main event.”

Fox knows it, too, even if she’s not completely comfortable with it yet. Her instant celebrity has been a boost in some ways, but at what cost? She had hoped to work her way up the women’s MMA ladder before coming out as the sport’s first transgender fighter, she said. Now she’s been thrust into the spotlight, and there’s no going back.

“I’d rather be known for my talent, for what I can do in the cage,” Fox said. “I’m sure that will come.”

Fowlkes also writes for MMAJunkie.com

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

Eddie Alvarez is through playing nice. When it comes to his legal battle with his former employers at the Bellator MMA fight promotion, Alvarez said, “The gloves are off.”

“They’re not playing fair,” said Alvarez (24-3), who criticized Bellator’s majority owner, Viacom, as a “group of idiots” in a Twitter tirade last weekend.

For Alvarez, a highly marketable fighter who’s No.10 in the USA TODAY Sports/MMAjunkie.com lightweight rankings, that means giving up any hope of a settlement with Bellator or a speedy resolution to their contract dispute, and taking his fight to the court of public opinion while he waits for a trial to settle the matter. Alvarez’s lawsuit has been filed in U.S. District Court in New Jersey.

In October the former Bellator lightweight champion won the final fight on his contract, allowing him to entertain offers from the Ultimate Fighting Championship. Bellator initially granted Alvarez an early release from his exclusive negotiation period but retained the right to match any offer Alvarez received. That’s exactly what the organization claimed it did after the UFC made him an offer, though Alvarez and his legal team disagree.

“They’re saying they’re matching the UFC’s contract,” Alvarez said. “They knew they couldn’t match it, and when I was given my early release, they tried to change the wording in my early release, which I had to sign. They tried to change ‘all terms’ to ‘material terms’ because they know they can’t match all terms.”

That’s just one of the accusations Alvarez is making. He also said though Viacom lawyers told a judge of plans to put him in a pay-per-view championship fight, no such plans exist.

Bellator has yet to hold a pay-per-view event. Even if Bellator had one, Alvarez said, the numbers wouldn’t come close to the UFC’s. He said the UFC offered him a percentage of PPV revenue in its offer.

Representatives for Bellator and Viacom, which owns the Spike TV network that airs Bellator events, declined to comment. Bellator Chairman and CEO Bjorn Rebney recently said discussions with Alvarez had broken down.

In the meantime, Alvarez is out of work. He recently sold an investment property in Philadelphia, which he said he “had to do to survive financially.” He has accused Bellator of short-changing other fighters, saying the organization bullied another former champion into taking a pay cut.

“It’s become a little bigger than my case,” Alvarez said. “I’m no sob story. There are fighters who make way less who have to fight. They can’t speak out because they have bills to pay. I’m fortunate to be in the position where I can stand up for myself. I don’t know if it’s worth it, but I know that this is what I would tell my kids to do. As long as I can pay my bills and stay afloat, I’m going to do what’s right.”

Fowlkes writes for MMAjunkie.com

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.

Source: USA TODAY

NEWARK, N.J. — Just when it was looking like Michael Bisping was headed for an impressive, dominant victory over Alan Belcher, controversy reared its head yet again at UFC 159.

Late in the third round of a fight he’d controlled with his precise striking and unrelenting pace, an accidental eye poke by Bisping dropped Belcher to the mat and forced a premature halt to the bout. At that point, the fight went to the judges’ scorecards, who awarded the unanimous technical decision to Bisping via 30-27, 30-27 and 29-28 scores.

The middleweight bout co-headlined Saturday night’s UFC 159 event at Prudential Center in Newark, N.J. It aired on pay-per-view following prelims on FX and Facebook.

Bisping dominated the first two rounds, repeatedly landing his right hand flush on Belcher’s jaw, which prompted Belcher’s corner to implore him to look for the finish in the third. But Bisping continued to out-strike Belcher in the final frame, right up until the eyepoke dropped Belcher in a heap and forced him to clutch his face in anguish.

After the fight, Bisping apologized for the inadvertent foul and admitted that he was “looking for a finish, but Alan was tough as hell.”

“My apologies to Alan,” Bisping said after the bout. “It was a complete accident. That’s just the way it happens sometimes.”

Belcher (18-8 MMA, 9-6 UFC) drops his second fight following his decision loss to Yushin Okami at UFC 155. Bisping (24-5 MMA, 14-5 UFC) bounces back into the win column after his TKO loss to Vitor Belfort in Brazil in January.

Contributing: Matt Erickson and Steven Marrocco. Fowlkes, Erickson and Marrocco write for MMAjunkie.com, part of the USA TODAY Sports Media Group.

Copyright © 2013 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.